Abraham Pickert

Abraham Pickert, a renowned Jewish art collector and antiquarian, was born in Fürth, the same city where Adolphe Schloss was born and raised. He began his career there as an antiquarian. He opened his business in Bäumenstrasse no. 132, and then moved to Upper Königstraße no. 403 (today Königstrasse 130). Abraham Pickert had four children: three sons, Sigmund, Julius and Max, all of whom worked at the firm; and a daughter, Babette.

In 1850 he received the title of court antiquarian. His eldest son, Sigmund (1825-1893) took over his father’s position as court antiquarian in 1872.

Pickert moved in 1858 to Nuremberg where he continued to ply his trade. He bought a house at Albrecht-Dürer-Platz no. 10, a grand late Gothic and Renaissance town house, also known as Pickerthaus. Three guestbooks of the Pickert Galerie, which are preserved in the Nuremberg municipal library, shows that Pickert received high profile clients from all over Europe. One of these clients, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (1798-1860) the Empress of Russia and a Prussian princess, came to the gallery in 1845. Other prominent visitors were collectors and museum curators.

His daughter, Babette, married Joseph Wolfgang Loewenbach, a court engraver. They lived in Munich.

Abraham Pickert’s private collection was sold at two separate auctions in 1881 and 1882 by J.M. Heberle in Cologne. Max Pickert took over the business after the death of his older brother Sigmund in 1893 and bequeathed the house to the city of Nuremberg. Max’s private collection was sold at auction in 1913.

Adolphe Schloss acquired a series of twelve works (ca. 1592) by Flemish painter Abel Grimmer (Schloss German no. 66-77/ French no. 90 1/12), which came from the Pickert Galerie in Nuremberg.

For more information see:  Ohm, Barbara. “Eine Fürther Kunstsammlung von Weltruf“. _Fürther Geschichtsblätter, J_g. 56, 2 (2006): pp. 84-87. Jopek, Norbert. Von “einem Juden aus Fürth” zur “Antiquitätensammlung des verdienstvollen Herrn Pickert”. Die Kunsthändlerfamilie Pickert und die Sammlungen des Germanischen Nationalmuseums. In: Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 2008, pp. 93-105. https://museenblog-nuernberg.de/2018/11/07/kunsthandlung-pickert/ Accessed 4 June 2021.