Margarete Mauthner

Coming from an upper-middle-class family, she was educated first by a governess, then in a secondary school. She was married twice. With her first husband she had a daughter who died in 1946. Her second husband was Edmund Mauthner (1868-1909).

Mautner translated monographs published by Bruno Cassirer as well as articles for Karl Scheffler's art magazine Kunst und Künstler. In 1917 she wrote her two-volume autobiography Rückblick, in which she traced the developments of the 19th century (the March Revolution, the founding of the Reich, the Gründerzeit, the crisis, the rise of the Jewish bourgeoisie). The Alexander/Mauthner family lived at Matthäikirchstraße 1 in a house built in 1840, which was destroyed in World War II and is now the site of the Philharmonic Hall. Robert Musil called the building The Enchanted House. Mauthner's manuscript of her autobiography, Rückblick, was rediscovered by Musil biographer Karl Corino, and published in 2004 under the title Das verzauberte Haus. It describes the interconnections between Mauthner, her brother, her cousin, Paul Cassirer (like his brother Bruno a publisher), and Musil. Das verzauberte Haus also plays a significant role in Musil (Die Versuchung der stillen Veronika, Die Schwärmer) and was also the title of a 1908 Musil work. Mauthner was instrumental in making Vincent van Gogh's art known in Germany, translating his letters. Among Mauthner's many translations since 1904 is The Artful Art of Making Enemies by the Anglo-American painter James McNeill Whistler, which deals with the libel trial of the art critic John Ruskin, which significantly shaped today's views on defamation and (in)freedoms of (art) criticism.

During the Nazi era, Mauthner helped family members to escape by providing financial support for their emigration. She fled Germany in 1939, leaving her possessions behind. She emigrated to South Africa, where she died in 1947.

Source: • Rückblick. 1917, 2 Bände, unveröffentlicht • Das verzauberte Haus. Hrsg. und mit einem Nachwort von Karl Corino. Mit einem Vorwort der Urenkel von Margarete Mauthner. Transit, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-88747-197-2.

• Briefe, Vincent van Gogh, Berlin, Cassirer, 1906, 144 S., 8. Auflage 1920 • Die artige Kunst sich Feinde zu machen mit einigen unterhaltenden Beispielen, wie ich die Ernsthaften dieser Erde zuerst mit Vorbedacht zur Raserei und dann in ihrem falschen Rechtsbewusstsein zu Unanständigkeit und Torheit gebracht habe, James McNeill Whistler • Berlin, Cassirer, 1909, 284 S. • Leipzig, Weimar, Kiepenheuer, 1984 • Hanau/Main, Müller, 1984, 255 S., ISBN 3-7833-6402-7 • Amsterdam (= Fundus Bücher 140), Dresden, Verlag der Kunst 1996, ISBN 90-5705-020-X, 288 S. • Volpone, Ben Jonson, Initialen, Titelblatt und Deckel von Aubrey Beardsley, W. Drugulin, Leipzig, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1910, Frontispiz, 163 S., Heliogravuren • Der Sturz des Sejanus. Volpone oder der Fuchs. Der Bartholomäusmarkt, Ben Jonson, Berlin, Cassirer, 1912, 406 S. • Édouard Manet: Erinnerungen, Antonin Proust, Veröff. von A. Barthélemy. Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1917, 133 S., 24 Abbildungen, 2. Auflage 1928 • Die Frau Konnetable (La Connestable), Honoré de Balzac, Lithographien von Lovis Corinth, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1922, 22 S. • Degas: Ambroise Vollard, Berlin, B. Cassirer, 1925, 111 S., 32 Lichtdrucktafeln • Vom Blockhaus zum Wolkenkratzer: Eine Studie über amerikanische Architektur und Zivilisation (Sticks and Stones), Lewis Mumford, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1925, 292 S., 25 Abbildungen