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Sources for business history: plans of New Court

Sources for art history: Catalogue of the pictures of Alfred de Rothschild 1901

Sources for yachting history: Plans for Nathaniel von Rothschild's yacht Veglia 1905

Sources for natural history: Walter 2nd Lord Rothschild and his zebra carriage: c.1910

Sources for global financial history: Map of lines of the Brazil Railway Company: c.1920

Sources for business history: index cards to bank files

Sources for social history: Rothschild Hospital Paris: 1920s

Sources for business history: detail of a Rothschild bond coupon

Sources for architectural history: Halton House: 1890s

Sources for the history of travel: Lionel de Rothschild's tours of Spain: 1909

Sources for local history: Tring Park: c.1900

Sources for Royal history: shooting party with Edward Prince of Wales: 1893

Sources for political history: Lionel de Rothschild: first Jewish MP: 1858

Sources for sporting history: St Amant winner of the Derby: 1904

Sources for local history: gardeners at Aston Clinton: 1899

Sources for Rothschild family history: Lionel de Rothschild's yacht Rhodora: 1927

Sources for London history: entrance to New Court: 1965

Sources for design history: plans for Lionel de Rothschild's Rolls-Royce: 1930

Sources for business history: Rothschild gold bars produced by the Royal Mint Refinery: 1930s

Sources for business history: letters of August Belmont Rothschild Agent in New York: 1860s

'The book that started it all': papers from the estate of Bettina Looram

This collection of papers includes numerous files from the Nazi administration relating to the collections of art looted from the Viennese Rothschild family.

000/2135 Papers from the estate of Bettina Looram née Rothschild (1924-2012) 

c.1908-1961

This recent acquisition, generously deposited with the Rothschild Archive by Mrs Nina Burr, provides a valuable link in the chain of research into looted art and the collections of the Austrian Rothschilds.

The papers were just one element in a systematic exercise in expropriation that involved the Viennese business house of S M von Rothschild, real estate and works of art. Immediately after the Anschluss in March 1938 the Vienna business house was put into the hands of administrators and traded under the name of E von Nicolai. The real estate was occupied and variously used by the National Socialist regime. The works of art were earmarked for distribution among leading Nazis, Hitler included, and were stored in salt mines at Alt Aussee for the duration of the war.

The material is a rich resource for historians of art, documenting the collections during and after the war. A substantial part of the collection consists of a card index of the collections of Alphonse von Rothschild, identifying each piece and its place of deposit during the war.

And of course there is ‘the book that started it all’, in the words of Nina Burr, Mrs Looram’s daughter. The bound typescript list of the‘Sammlung Alphons Rothschild’, the inventory of confiscated objects that the late Mrs Looram used as the starting point in her campaign to recover the family’s art.

See The book that started it all: art archives and Austria in The Rothschild Archive Annual Review 2012-2013 for more about these papers.

 

 

 

File from the German Ministry of Economics dealing with Rothschild assets

File from the German Ministry of Economics dealing with Rothschild assets

one of three boxes of index cards itemising Rothschild collections

one of three boxes of index cards itemising Rothschild collections