Wesendonk, Otto

Biography

Financier Otto Wesendonk (1815-1896) and his wife, the poet Mathilde née Luckemeyer (1828-1902) settled in Zürich in 1851, where they met composer Richard Wagner, providing him with a house he named the Asyl that adjoining their villa. Otto became a generous patron of Wagner, who is generally believed to have fallen in love with Mathilde. Their relationship inspired Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, and the Wesendonck Lieder. Otto and Mathilde spelled their name "Wesendonck;" their son reverted to what was probably the original spelling of name sometime after 1900.

Otto Wesendonk assembled a fine collection of Old Master paintings. After his death, some of these were on display at the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin and later, from 1909-1935 on long term loan to the City of Bonn. In 1935 the collection was returned to Wesendonk's heirs, who sold a portion of it through Lempertz, Cologne, that same year.

Bibliography

1914

Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn. Katalog der Gemäldegalerie: Vorwiegend Sammlung Wesendonk. Bonn, 1914.

1968

Bergfeld, J. Otto und Mathilde Wesendonks Bedeurung für das Legen und Schaffen Richard Wagner. Bayreuth, 1968.

1996

Turner, Jane, ed. The Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 3:889.

Related Content