Franz Kleinberger

Franz Kleinberger, an art dealer and founder of the F. Kleinberger Galleries in Paris and New York, was born in Budapest (Hungary). He was killed on a Paris street in 1937. Kleinberger came from a family of art dealers based in Hungary. His father, Dávid Kleinberger Dombai, owned the Kleinberger & Son First Hungarian Art Gallery in Budapest (founded in 1882), and later opened a branch in Vienna. Dávid specialized in Dutch, Flemish, French, and Spanish Old Masters. He also sold works by Hungarian artists. Franz’s brother, Sándor Samuel (Samu) Dombai was also an art dealer.

Franz Kleinberger (hereafter Kleinberger) worked as a dealer at his father’s gallery in Vienna. Then he opened a gallery with his father in Karlsbad (in what was then Bohemia). In 1882, Kleinberger married Charlotte Lotti Schwartz (b. 1865) and opened his own gallery in Paris at 9 Rue de l’Echelle in 1883. Through his education from his father and accumulated knowledge throughout the years, he became an expert on Dutch, Flemish and German Old Master paintings. He was the co-editor of the Catalogue Raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch painters of the seventeenth century based on the work of John Smith by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot.

Kleinberger had many close connections with museums in Europe and the United States, private collectors and art dealers. One of his close friends was Charles Sedelmeyer (1837-1925), a Parisian art dealer.

Kleinberger’s well-known clients included Adolphe Schloss, August de Ridder, Marcus Kappel, and American collectors such as J.P. Morgan (1837-1913), and John G. Johnson (1841-1917). In 1909, Kleinberger sold the collection of King Leopold II of Belgium. In 1910, through Kleinberger, Schloss bought a painting from the King Leopold II collection, a portrait by Thomas de Keyser. Schloss sold the painting prior to his death. Kleinberger was awarded the Insignia of “Officier de la Légion d’Honneur,” the Imperial Austrian Order of Franz Joseph and the Order of Leopold in Belgium.

Source and for more information see: Nagy, Ladislaus (The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest). “The art dealer François Kleinberger (1858-1937) and his family”: [about:blank https://www.academia.edu/44227717/The_art_dealer_Fran%C3%A7ois_Kleinberger_1858_1937_and_his_family] Accessed on June 4 2021.