Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein

Who was Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein?

Margarethe "Gretl" Stonborough-Wittgenstein, of the prominent and wealthy Viennese Wittgenstein family, was a sister of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein. She was the subject of a famous 1905 portrait painted for her wedding by the artist Gustav Klimt, which was sold in 1960 by her son Thomas and may now be seen in the Neue Pinakothek gallery in Munich.

On 7 January, 1905, she married a wealthy American, Jerome Stonborough. Of German Jewish ancestry and born Jerome Herman Steinberger, he had had his name changed to Stonborough in 1900. He was also an art collector. They were close friends with Hermann Rothe, Margaret was the godmother of his daughter Margarethe. The couple had two sons and divorced in 1923.

⁕Dr. Thomas Humphrey Stonborough. His Swiss friend Marguerite Respinger, whom he had met when he was studying in Cambridge and had invited to Vienna, was briefly the only known female interest of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1939, Thomas Stonborough married Elizabeth Churchill, but they soon divorced.