Jacob Kabrun Jr. (9 January 1759, Danzig – 24 October 1814, Danzig) was a wealthy merchant, book and art collector, and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

who lived in Danzig (present-day

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Life

In the late 17th century, a Scottish merchant named Cockburn established a German branch of the family, which adopted the Germanized surname 'Kabrun', in the

Hanseatic The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

port of Danzig. Jacob Kabrun Jr. was the great-grandson of the Scottish founder of the successful Kabrun merchant trading house. From September to December 1804 the future philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the Phenomenon, phenomenal world as ...

gained business experience working for Kabrun's firm. Kabrun was friends with Schopenhauer's father, a member of another Danzig merchant family. Kabrun built up and maintained an extensive collection containing books and several thousand valuable drawings, paintings and prints. By the time that he bequeathed his collection to the city of Danzig it contained 339 oil paintings, 1950 watercolors and drawings, and 10883 engravings and woodcuts. The surviving collection is now held in the

National Museum, Gdańsk The National Museum in Gdańsk (), established in 1972 in Gdańsk (although the history goes back the third quarter of 19th century), is one of the main branches of Poland's national museum system. History Its main location is in the old late- Go ...

. Many works from the original collection were unfortunately looted or destroyed during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The collection of Far Eastern art and the collection of antique coins had disappeared entirely by the end of the war. Kabrun also bequeathed 100000 florins to establish a Business Academy in Danzig.Bahr, Ernst: ''New German Biography'', 1974, vol. 10, pp. 717-718. URL http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd123660882.html (in German)

References

External links

Art patron Jacob Kabrun of Danzig (in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kabrun 1759 births 1814 deaths Merchants from the Kingdom of Prussia German philanthropists German art collectors Businesspeople from Gdańsk German people of Scottish descent 18th-century art collectors 19th-century art collectors