Rolf and Margarete Prause Estate, Klagenfurt

Rolf and Margarete Prause Estate, Klagenfurt

Immediately after the First World War, the Viennese-born Friedrich Prause - just 29 years old - founded a shop for antiques, art and jewellery in Klagenfurt with entrepreneurial talent and courage. From the headquarters on Neuer Platz he bought in a discreet manner brilliants, gold and silver jewellery, artificial teeth and dentures as well as artisanal antiquities such as porcelain, coloured glass, ivory carvings, pictures, etc." (Advertisement in: Freie Stimmen, 20 December 1919)

He used a  truck to collect the goods for his trade from the farms, manors and castles of Carinthia - and was successful. In 1933 he also set up a carpentry workshop specialising in period piece of furniture, which was later sold in branches throughout Austria under the aegis of the elder of his five sons.

After his early death in 1948, the two youngest Günter and Gerolf Prause, both barely out of school, took over the original company in the centre of Klagenfurt together. This always friendly professional partnership was to last for over 50 years. The post-war years were initially a very difficult time for the still inexperienced entrepreneurs. Gradually, however, the brothers expanded the retail business with the wholesale of Bohemian garnet jewellery and the representation of porcelain from the Meissen and Augarten manufactories.

During the 1980s - by now under the management of their son, Walter Prause, and with a number of employees - they expanded the wholesaler initiative to include ranges of pearls and amber; special attention was paid to a collection of fine antique jewellery.

Rolf Prause's silent love has been antiques all his life. With great taste and a knack for the extraordinary, he has selected the things that should surround him and his wife in their private sphere for decades: Furniture, paintings, sculpture, graphic art, silver, objets de vertu. An eclectic collection, determined by a love of beauty and a feeling for quality. Both enjoyed it daily.

Antiques: lot 1372 to 1493

Old Masters: lot 2155 to 2165

19th century paintings: lot 2536 to 2548