Max Emden

Max James Emden (28 October 1874 – 26 June 1940) was a German-born Swiss businessman, art collector, heir and bon vivant. He was the owner of the Brissago Islands on Lake Maggiore from 1926 until his death.

Emden primarily collected 19th century of Old Masters as well as French and German painters such as Canaletto, Böcklin, Feuerbach, Liebermann, Courbet, Degas, Gauguin, van Gogh and Monet. Some of Emden's properties, including valuable paintings, have been the object of Nazi-era restitution claims. How his legacy has been handled has sparked a debate in Germany about the erasure of information concerning the Nazi era

Early life and education

Emden was born 28 October 1874 in Hamburg, German Empire, the older of two children, of Jakob "Giacomo" Emden (1843–1916), a wealthy merchant and owner of department stores, and Mathilde Emden (née Kann; 1841–1910). He had an older sister, Alice Stéphanie Aboucaya (née Emden; 1873–1968).

The Emden family was a well established Jewish merchant family (named after the city of Emden) which has been settled in Hamburg since the 17th century and were active in the textile industry which would later turn into the department store giant M.J. Emden Söhne (M.J. Emden Sons). His mother hailed from a wealthy banking family from Frankfurt am Main.

Emden graduated from Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Hamburg on 7 September 1893. He then pursued studies in chemistry and mineralogy at the Universities of Heidelberg, Geneva, Zurich and Leipzig earning a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1898.

Career Emden fulfilled military duty in 1896/97 serving in the Leib-Husaren-Regiment in Danzig; a cavalry unit in the Prussian Army.

Placard of the Corvin Áruház four-storey department store in Budapest, Hungary, 1926. The Corvin palace-like department store was founded by the Hamburg company M.J. Emden Söhne with a share capital of one million Hungarian korona. Opened on 1 March 1926, it is the oldest department store in Hungary. Emden worked in the family textile trading company M. J. Emden Söhne becoming a partner in 1904 and later sole owner. Founded in Hamburg in 1823, the company expanded internationally under Emden, becoming a major department store chain. For the stores, Emden acquired plots of land in the centres of German and foreign cities, throughout Europe, in Berlin, Potsdam, Chemnitz, Plauen, Munich, Danzig, Stockholm, Helsinki and Budapest. on Lake Maggiore from the heavily indebted island owner Baroness Antoinette de Saint Léger. The idea, came from Emden's old friend, the famous violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who wanted the smaller of the two islands for himself. But Huberman had to leave, before the negotiations began, on a concert tour to North and South America, Paris, London, and Berlin. The proceeds from this auction, some 262 articles, with a 'report to follow' annotation, was published in the next issue (24) of Weltkunst (Art of the World) in the same month.

Persecuted in Nazi Germany because of his Jewish origins,

In 1930, the Russian painter Baroness Marianne von Werefkin, who was living in Ascona at the time, refused to sell Emden a painting through Emden's middleman, despite her poverty, to show that "There are still artists who respect their work but don't jump after every bite like hungry dogs [...] Emden thinks that you can buy everything, he scorns people and artists, because they, like hungry dogs, camp around him. [...] better, if I beg from poor fellows like myself."

In 1934 Emden acquired the Swiss civil rights (Bürgerrecht) from the municipality of Ronco sopra Ascona, which is adjacent to the Brissago Islands, but could not secure the same for his son Hans Erich. On his island residence, Emden was visited by numerous celebrities, such as Aga Khan III, the King of Siam Ananda Mahidol, members of the German nobility, the international best-seller novelist and good friend Erich Maria Remarque, including annually Emden's ex-wife and her entourage—who had remarried and was now Countess Einsiedel; the countess' visits were a sensation for Ascona, as the beautiful woman completely ignored the fact that one never got dressed properly there. Interviewed in The Times of Israel, Juan Carlos Emden (grandson)

Art collection: claims, lawsuits and restitutions The fate of property that belonged to Emden before the rise of the Nazis, including paintings from his collection that ended up in German museums, has been the subject of debate in Germany. The German weekly Der Spiegel questioned in a 2017 article about Max Emden "whether people in this country have ever really taken the commitment to reparation and also to the establishment of the truth seriously". Artists concerned include Bellotto, Canaletto and Monet among others.

On 26 March 2019 Germany's Advisory Commission on the Return of Cultural Property Seized as a Result of Nazi Persecution announced that, in the case of Dr Max James Emden vs. the Federal Republic of Germany, it recommended that the paintings "The Moat of the Zwinger in Dresden" and the "Karlskirche in Vienna" (both by Bernardo Bellotto) be restituted to the heirs of Dr Max James Emden. The two artworks were currently in the possession of the German government.

In 2006, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) rejected an Emden claim for Lady with a Fan, by Gerard ter Borch. In October 2025, the NGV quietly restituted the painting to the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg, for whom Emden had hidden the property.

In 2021 the Monuments Men Foundation announced that it had located a painting from the Emden collection by Bernardo Bellotto called "The Marketplace at Pirna" in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) with an inaccurate provenance that concealed the history of the painting. After the MFAH refused to restitute the painting the Emden heirs filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Texas.

Personal life In 1910, Emden married the Chilean-born Concordia Gertrud Hélène Anna "Anita" Sternberg (1888–1973), a daughter of Emilio Sternberg and Margaretha Sternberg (née Andersen), of Valparaíso. His son, Juan Carlos Emden, pledged for restitution of key pieces of the Emden Collection. The Emden's were divorced in 1926. Anita subsequently married secondly on 3 December 1927 in Munich, Germany to Adolkar von Einsiedel, Graf von Einsiedel (1889–1963).

Emden died on 26 June 1940 in Muralto, Switzerland aged 65.

Publications Über die Reduktionsprodukte der Phenylglyoxyldicarbonsäure. Inaugural-Dissertation der Hohen Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Leipzig zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde. Druck von Metzger & Wittig, Leipzig 1898 (nicht im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek enthalten). Hamburger Baukunst. Hamburg, November 1909 (nicht im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek enthalten). (Digitalisat Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg) Der natürliche Arbeitstag : eine Rechenaufgabe. (Digitalisat Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg)

Film On 10 April 2019, the documentary film Life is an Art – The Max Emden Case premiered in Hamburg. The film works on the story of Max Emden and depicts the heirs' lavish struggle for restitution and justice against the authorities and private art collectors. Numerous experts comment on the subject of looted art and the works of art that were in the possession of Max Emden.

Literature Ulrich Brömmling: Max Emden. Hamburger Kaufmann, Kaufhauserfinder, Ästhet und Mäzen. (Reihe: Mäzene für Wissenschaft, Neue Folge; Bd. 1). Wallstein, Göttingen 2020. Ulrike Knöfel: Für ein Opfer zu mondän. In: Der Spiegel 38, 2017; online unter dem Titel Das Schicksal des Kaufhauskönigs Emden (noch nicht verlinkbar). Robert Landmann: Ascona – Monte Verità. Auf der Suche nach dem Paradies. Schultz, Berlin 1930; Huber, Frauenfeld 2000. Ulrich Luckhardt, Uwe M. Schneede: Private Schätze. Über das Sammeln von Kunst in Hamburg bis 1933. Ausstellungskatalog. Hamburg 2001. Giuseppe Mondada: Die Brissago-Inseln in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Dadò, Brissago 1975. Eberhard Mros: Die Brissago-Inseln und ihre Umgebung im launischen Spiel der Zeiten. E. Mros, Ascona 2011. Curt Riess: Ascona. Geschichte des seltsamsten Dorfes der Welt. Europa Verlag, Zürich 1964, Munich 2021 Birgit Schwarz: Hitlers Museum. Böhlau, Wien 2004. Michael Sontheimer, Andreas Wassermann: Moral und Millionen. In: Der Spiegel. Nr. 45, 2006 (online – über die Kunstsammlung Emden). Carlo Speziali: 1885 – 1950 – 1985. Le isole di Brissago. Brissago 1985, speziell S. 48 ff. Francesco Welti: Der Kaufhaus-König und die Schöne im Tessin. Max Emden und die Brissago-Inseln. Huber, Frauenfeld 2010. Ursula von Wiese: Vogel Phönix. Stationen meines Lebens. Klio, Bern 1994. (Autobiographie). Die Sammlung Dr. Max Emden. Auktion bei Ball-Graupe, Berlin, 9 June 1931 (Auktionskatalog); Universität Heidelberg (Digitalisat).