Sir Maximillian Michaelis, (11 May 1852 – 26 January 1932) was a South African financier, mining magnate, benefactor and patron of the arts. He received his early schooling in

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

Mining career

Michaelis first arrived in South Africa in 1876 when he landed at

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

. Two years later he moved to

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

, drawn by the 1871 discovery of diamonds and the prospect of wealth. Here he became a close business associate of

Julius Wernher Sir Julius Charles Wernher, 1st Baronet (9 April 1850 – 21 May 1912) was a German-born Randlord, diamond magnate, and art collector. He became part of the English establishment. Life history Born in Darmstadt, Hesse, Wernher was the son of ...

and

Alfred Beit Alfred Beit (15 February 1853 – 16 July 1906) was an Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university ed ...

, and got to know Hermann Eckstein and Jim B. Taylor – friendships that were to last a lifetime. He was co-opted by Wernher to deal in diamonds for Porges and Wernher, and in the 1880s restructured the Cape Diamond Company. He was a founding partner of Wernher, Beit & Co. Within some years he became manager of the Central Mining and Investment Corporation in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

. From 1896 he worked at the corporation's offices in London and remained there until 1919, when he returned to South Africa. In England he led an extremely secluded life on the country estate, Tandridge Court in Surrey. Unlike the other Randlords, he was not given to lavish entertaining and spending, avoided the press, did not have an opulent London mansion and despite desiring a baronetcy, was not socially ambitious.

Later life

With the outbreak of World War I and the anti-German hysteria that gripped England, Michaelis acted on a suggestion by General Smuts that he return to South Africa. Michaelis and his wife arrived in Cape Town in 1919. In December of that year a grand civic reception for 2,000 guests was given in his honour. They went on to have two children, Cecil and Iris Michaelis.

Philanthropy and art

In 1913 he presented a collection of Dutch and Flemish old masters to the Union government, a gift leading to his being knighted. These formed the basis of the Michaelis Collection and were housed in the Old Town House in Cape Town. The decision to house the collection in Cape Town came in for a great deal of criticism. Public sentiment at the time was that the money had originated from the Reef gold mines and that the collection belonged in Johannesburg. Also, a lot of the works were regarded as being of indifferent quality (''Portrait of a Woman'' by

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, ; ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate thei ...

being the cynosure of the collection) and there was at least one painting of questionable attribution. These works had been collected by

Lady Phillips Dorothea Sarah Florence Alexandra, Lady Phillips (née Ortlepp; 14 June 1863 – 23 August 1940) was a South African art patroness and promoter of Indigenous peoples, indigenous culture. She was married to Lionel Phillips, Sir Lionel Phillips ...

(wife of Sir

Lionel Phillips Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Baronet (6 August 1855 – 2 July 1936) was a British-born South African financier, mining magnate and politician. Early life Phillips was born in London on 6 August 1855 to Phillip Phillips, a trader, and his wife J ...

, Bt) and Sir

Hugh Lane Sir Hugh Percy Lane (9 November 1875 – 7 May 1915) was an Irish art dealer, collector and gallery director. He is best known for establishing Dublin's Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (the first known public gallery of modern art in the ...

. In June 1920 at the urging of Lady Phillips, Michaelis endowed the chair of Fine Art at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

and in return was rewarded with an honorary LL.D. The school now bears his name, the

Michaelis School of Fine Art The Michaelis School of Fine Art is a public university, public tertiary education, tertiary art school in the Cape Town suburb of Gardens, Cape Town, Gardens. It was founded in 1925 and is named after its benefactor, Max Michaelis. It is the Fin ...

. He also donated a large number of art works to museums in Kimberley and Johannesburg. In 1924 a knighthood was conferred on Max Michaelis. He died of cancer at Bellariastraße 7 in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

on 26 January 1932.Ancestry.com
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995 (pay to view). Michaeliscollection

Lady Michaelis, who returned to England on the death of Max Michaelis, presented large collections of art to the National Art Gallery in Cape Town and to Pretoria, with further gifts to the Michaelis Collection in Cape Town. She was the founder of the Lady Michaelis Orthopaedic Home in Cape Town.

Moses Kottler Moses Kottler (1896–1977) was a South African painter and sculptor. He is widely regarded, along with Anton van Wouw and Lippy Lipshitz, as one of the most important South African sculptors. This triumvirate had the distinction of also havin ...

created a bronze bust of Sir Max, which was placed in the garden of the Old Town House in Cape Town. In 1920, Max Michaelis had acquired the Montebello estate in Newlands. Before his death in 1996, his son Cecil Michaelis, the artist, resenting government

expropriation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...

of the estate, donated Montebello to the University of Cape Town on condition the estate was used to promote design – this is now known as the Montebello Design Centre and the old residence as Michaelis House, the junior boarding house of the

South African College Schools The South African College Schools (colloquially often known as “SACS”) is a public English medium primary and high education institution situated in Newlands – part of the Southern Suburbs region of Cape Town in the Western Cape provinc ...

Gallery

File:Old Town House00.jpg, File:Portrait of a Woman00.jpg, File:Lady Michaelis01.jpg,

References

External links

Montebello Design Centre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michaelis, Max 1852 births 1932 deaths South African mining businesspeople German mining businesspeople Randlords German people of Jewish descent Emigrants from the German Empire Immigrants to the Cape Colony Businesspeople from Nuremberg Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George