(Vienna 1791–1866) Three studies: Blue gardener primroses, a green ground beetle, strawberry flowers, bell flowers and May beetles, three fern leaves, inscribed Fr. Xav. Petter Wien, Fr. X. Petter (1)861 and partly illegibly inscribed Fr. Xav. Petter Wien ... (faded), pencil, watercolor on paper, 33,9 x 29 cm, 40 x 26,3 cm, 43 x 27,5 cm, mounted, unframed, in a casket, browned, light-bleaching, stained, (3) (BH)

Provenance:
Until 1939 Collection Serena Lederer (1867- 1943), Vienna/Budapest;
seizure of the collection through the Vienna magistrate, Dpt. 50, 4.4.1939;
revocation of seizure 23.8.1946;
restitution to Erich Lederer (1896–1985), Geneva 1950;
allocated to the Albertina as quid pro quo for export permission, delivery on 18.6.1951 (Inv. Nos. 31111, 31112, 31113);
resolution for the restitution to the legal successors after Erich Lederer on 30.11.2012;
delivery to the legal successors after Erich Lederer on 26.1.2022.

The Lederer family
The industrial magnate August Lederer was born in Bohemian Leipa on 3rd May 1857. He was president and managing director of the Raab distillery and refinery in Györ and president of the spirit and chemicals factory in Vienna. In August 1892, he married Sidonie “Serena” Putzer who was born in Budapest on May 20th 1867 and was the daughter of Simon Siegmund Pulitzer and his wife Charlotte, nee Politzer. The couple had three children: Erich, Fritz und Elisabeth. The family lived in Vienna, in Weidlingau Castle and in an apartment on the factory premises in Raab/Györ. On the initiative of Serena Lederer the couple collected artworks by Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and other artists as well as works of the Renaissance. The Lederers are considered the most important patrons of Gustav Klimt, they received art historical fame because they owned the most important and largest private collection of the work of Gustav Klimt. Klimt was regularly invited at dinners in the Lederers’ house and also gave drawing lessons to Lederer’s daughter Elisabeth. On the recommendation of Klimt also Egon Schiele frequented the Lederers’ house after 1912 and became friends particularly with Erich, the elder of the Lederer sons.
In 1936 August Lederer died. The art collection remained with his widow Serena and was seized in 1939 on request of the Central Office for the protection of Historical Monuments, after Serena Lederer had applied for export permission of the collection to Hungary. Several Austrian museums sought allocations for the seized art objects, even Hermann Göring was interested in individual works. In spring 1944 a large part of the Lederer collection was transferred to Immendorf Castle in Lower Austria where it is said to have burned under unexplained circumstances in the closing days of May 1945. After World War II and the end of the Nazi-regime the expropriated collection holdings were restituted to the rightful owners or their legal successors on the basis of restitution laws. As some objects were affected by the provisions of the export ban due to their historical, artistic and cultural significance, extensive “dedications” were wrested from the Lederer family in order to allow them to take out works from the country in return. In accordance with the provisions of the Art Restitution Act of 1998/2009, the works affected by these dedications must be restituted to the rightful owners or their legal successors. The three watercolors by F. X. Petter whose restitution was decided in 2012 can now be offered at the Dorotheum for sale, after all entitled legal successors have been determined.