Max Meirowsky

Max Meirowsky (born 17 February 1866 in Guttstadt; died 1 December 1949 in Geneva) was a German-Jewish industrialist and art collector persecuted by the Nazis.

In 1894 he founded a company near Porz to produce insulating material (mica, monazite and feldspar) for the emerging electrical and motor industries.

The company flourished, and in 1910 was transformed into a family corporation, Meirowsky AG, in which Max's brother Emil also participated.

[5] Meirowsky's art collection included works by van Gogh, Renoir,[6] Monet, Gauguin,[7] Pissarro and Hodler.

[8][9] He had a fine collection of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, including Van Gogh’s "Portrait of Camille Roulin" (1888) (now in the Museo de Arte, São Paulo).

[10] In 1913 he purchased Van Gogh's Wheatstacks, a painting that would pass through many hands, including another Jewish art collector, Alexandrine de Rothschild (1884-1965), before suddenly resurfacing at Christie’s New York "following complex behind-the-scenes deal" in 2021.