Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein

Margaret "Gretl" Stonborough-Wittgenstein (September 19, 1882 – September 27, 1958), of the prominent and wealthy Viennese Wittgenstein family, was a sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein.[1] She was the subject of a famous 1905 portrait painted for her wedding by the artist Gustav Klimt (Stonborough-Wittgenstein and other members of the Wittgenstein family were among Klimt's most important patrons), which was sold in 1960 by her son Thomas and may now be seen in the Neue Pinakothek gallery in Munich.[2]

Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein
Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein painted by Klimt for her wedding portrait in 1905
Born
Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein

(1882-09-19)19 September 1882
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died27 September 1958(1958-09-27) (aged 76)
NationalityAustrian
Known forSubject of a Klimt portrait painting, sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein
Spouse(s)
Jerome Stonborough
​
​
(m. 1905; div. 1938)​
Children2
Parents

Biography

Marriage and children
Photo by Ferdinand Schmutzer (1903)

On 7 January 1905, she married a wealthy American, Jerome Stonborough (1873 - June 1938, suicide).[3] Of German Jewish ancestry and born Jerome Herman Steinberger, he had had his name changed to Stonborough in 1900. He was also an art collector. Margaret and Jerome were close friends with Hermann Rothe, and Margaret was the godmother of his daughter Margarethe. The couple had two sons and divorced in 1938; Jerome committed suicide shortly thereafter.

  • Dr. Thomas Humphrey Stonborough (1906–1986).[4] His Swiss friend Marguerite Respinger (1904-2000), whom he had met when he was studying in Cambridge and had invited to Vienna, was briefly (1926-1931) the only known female interest of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1939, Thomas Stonborough married Elizabeth Churchill, but they soon divorced (she was to remarry Washington Evening Star columnist Constantine Brown, and became a journalist and anti-communist activist under the name of Elizabeth Churchill Brown). Haus Wittgenstein was owned by Thomas Stonborough until 1968 when it was sold to a developer for demolition.
  • Major John Jerome Stonborough (11 June 1912, Vienna - 29 April 2002, Ferndown, Dorset). Although a US citizen, he served in the Canadian army during Second World War as an intelligence officer and interpreter. He married the daughter of a distinguished Northumberland family, Veronica Morrison-Bell (daughter of Sir Claude William Hedley Morrison-Bell, 2nd Baronet), and after the war lived between Britain and Austria.

Career

After the First world war, Stonborough-Wittgenstein was appointed by the American Relief Administrator Herbert Hoover (later president of the United States) as special representative of the American Relief Program for Austria. When working in juvenile prisons as a psychotherapy adviser, she came into contact with Sigmund Freud and was analyzed by him over the course of two years. They remained in contact until Freud's death.[5]

Haus Wittgenstein
Haus Wittgenstein, also known as Stonborough House, in Vienna
Main article: Haus Wittgenstein

In 1926, she commissioned her brother Ludwig and the architect Paul Engelmann to design and build Haus Wittgenstein in Vienna. Sold by her son Thomas in 1968, this noted building still stands today, and now houses the Bulgarian Cultural Institute.[6]

Final years

In 1940, she emigrated to the US, but returned to Austria after the war and obtained restitution of part of her wealth which had been confiscated by the Third Reich. She moved back into Haus Wittgenstein until her death in 1958, passing the house on to her son, Thomas.[3]

Notes
  1. Bartley, William Warren. Wittgenstein. Open Court, 1994, p. 34ff, first published 1973.
  2. Edmonds, David; Eidinow, John (2002). Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of A Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. New York, NY: Ecco / Harper Collins Publishers. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-06-093664-8.
  3. Monk, Ray (1991). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Penguin. pp. 238. ISBN 0140159959.
  4. "Thomas Stonborough, 1906 - 1986". MyHeritage. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  5. Edmonds, David; Eidinow, John (2002). Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of A Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. New York, NY: Ecco / Harper Collins Publishers. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-0-06-093664-8.
  6. Jeffries, Stuart. "A dwelling for the gods", The Guardian, 5 January 2002.
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