Nathaniel Mayer (Puggy) von Rothschild (1836-1905)
Nathaniel Mayer von Rothschild, known within the family as 'Puggy', was born in Vienna on 26 October 1836, the son of Anselm Salomon (1803-1874) and Charlotte (née de Rothschild) (1807-1859). Nathaniel, and to a greater extent his younger brother Salomon Albert (1844-1911), ran the Viennese bank after the death of their father.
Art & Horticulture
Baron Nathaniel's interests were much wider than banking. In 1872, Nathaniel built a magnificent Palais on the Theresianumgasse in Vienna, where he was able to display the collection of art and objects he had inherited from his father, and to which he added. In 1903, he published a catalogue of his collection, Notizen über einige meiner Kunstgegenstande. Many items from Nathaniel’s collection (and that of his bother Albert) were looted from the family during the Second World War and were returned to descendants of the family in the 1990s, before being famously sold at Christie’s in London in 1999.
Nathaniel kept his own stud and bred numerous fine horses including three Derby winners. From 1882, he began to acquire plots including the former Kuglerbad Spa in Vienna in order to build a villa, and create what became known as The Rothschild Gardens on the Hohe Warte. Here, he established a botanical garden, under the guidance of the city Garden Inspector Anton Joli. A Japanese garden was created, and an array of summer houses, imitation antiquities and other garden constructions in fashionable at the time. The gardens charged the public an entrance fee, and the proceeds of the ticket sales were used to fund a voluntary fire and ambulance service in the city. Nathaniel brought gardeners from England to develop his gardens, and is credited with having introduced football into Austria; one of the gardeners' sons at Hohe Warte, returning from England where he had learnt the game, gained his support for a team as a means of providing recreation for the estate staff. With land and finance from Nathaniel, a club was formed in 1894, which still exists today as The First Vienna Football Club.
Travel, photography and philanthropy
Together with his brother Albert, photography was one of Nathaniel's interests. Nathaniel was a leading member (and benefactor) of the Viennese Camera Club, publishing many of his photographs. He travelled widely in Europe and privately published accounts of his journeys, illustrated with his own photographs for family and friends. The Archive holds a number of examples of Baron Nathaniel's travelogues, including Skizzen aus dem Süden, in two volumes, 1894-1895, Reise-Erinnerungen, 1901 and Schiffsbilder, 1902.
In common with other members of his family, Nathaniel was a generous benefactor of many institutions; he founded a general hospital, institutes for the blind and deaf, an orphanage and a neurological clinic.
Nathaniel died on 12 June 1905.
