WRECK OF A GREAT FORTUNE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81914, 8 January 1907, Page 4

WRECK OF A GREAT FORTUNE

PRODIGAL'S PICTURES SOLD FOR ,£75,000. *

Berlin, November 20.

The collection of pictures owned by Baron Konigswaerter, an Austrian nobleman of Jewish extraction, was sold here to-day for £75,000, the highest price paid being £1)000 for Rembrandt's portrait of himself. The collection, which included examples by Van Dyek, Rubens, and other great masters, was previously valued at £120,000 at Vienna, where Baron Konigswaerter, formerly the richest young man in the empire, succeeded in dissipating the vast fortune accumulated by his father and grandfather.

~ For the past twelve years Baron Komgswaerte is said to have lived the I most extravagant life of any resident I in Veinna. He paid fabulous prices for pictures, organised the largest racing stable in Austria, and lost immense sums at gambling clubs. lie twice won the Austrian Derby, but despite his prodigality he found it impossible to enter the aristocratic circles to which he aspired. Baron Konigwaerter forfeited £BO,000 to Jewish charities when his wile persuaded him to abandon the Jewish faith and become a Roman Catholic. He obtained a divorce a few years later, and this cost nearly £IOOOOO. It was estimated recently that the Baron had £400,000 worth of debts, and after the sale of his pictures and racing stud, he will have only a very small income. His vast estates in Hungary, Moravia and Bohemia are heavily mortgaged.