Franz Oppenheimer

Franz Oppenheimer (1 August 1871 – 26 April 1950) was a German businessman and art collector who assembled a large and significant collection of early 18th century Meissen porcelain at his home in Berlin, Germany.

Career Franz Oppenheimer was born the son of Ruben Leopold Oppenheimer and Rebecka Loeb in Hamburg on 1 August 1871. After qualifying as a lawyer, he joined Emanuel Friedlaender & Co, a business operating coal mines in Silesia, and rose to be managing director.

In the 1920s, Oppenheimer assembled a collection of around 500 items of Meissen porcelain at his home near the Tiergarten in Berlin: some of the more important items had originally been commissioned by Augustus the Strong for display in the Japanisches Palais in Dresden. Oppenheimer lived in retirement in an apartment in East 86th Street and died in New York on 26 April 1950.

The Oppenheimer collection

Oppenheimer's collection of around 500 items of Meissen Porcelain was professionally catalogued in 1927.

One art expert, Alfredo Reyes, claimed that the auction of the Oppenheimer Collection was the most significant sale of a porcelain collection since the sale of Maurice de Rothschild's collection at Christie's in the late 1970s.

Family Oppenheimer married Margarete Grete Knapp on 27 March 1902; they had two children, Marie Louise and Franz Karl.