bg Slavonski Brod

Dragutin Schwendemann House

- Trg Ivane Brlić Mažuranić 5 -
The two-story building, which was built by Rozine Muravić, a longtime owner of the Kasina Inn, was built around 1880 for residential and commercial purposes. Izidor Steiner had a bookstore in one of the small shops on the southeast side of the main town square, and in 1908 he rented a large shop in in this building and sold philatelic accessories and stamps there. It is said that it was the only shop for philatelists east of and south of . Izidor Steiner was born in Brod na Sava, nowadays Slavonski Brod, on September 28, 1881, in the family of Herz and Katarina Reich. From 1908 until the end of the , he was the most famous bookseller with a shop on the main town square, the same square where his brother Hertz Steiner ran an inn. Izidor also kept a lending library. He has been a member of the Zionist Society since 1909, and in 1911, he became the founder of the Philatelist Club in Slavonski Brod. He moved to Zagreb in 1929 where he became engaged in the antiques trade and eventually passed away.
An old postcard that shows Izidor Steiner's bookstore
In 1918, the building was bought by the goldsmith, jeweler, engraver, and painter, Dragutin Schwendemann, who was born on January 17, 1882, in the family of Lorenz and Veronica Schwendemann. He attended the Folk High School in Slavonski Brod, where teacher Mavro Markovac noticed his drawing talent very quickly. The efforts of the later mayor of Brod, Karl Piskur, to enable the young Dragutin to continue his education in didn't meet with the approval of his parents, who in 1894 sent him to study goldsmithing and became the only goldsmith in Slavonski Brod at the time. In 1899, his father Lorenz died and he went to his funeral in Budapest, where he got a job as a journeyman with the excellent master Saltzer and dedicatedly learned the complicated skills of goldsmithing.
Dragutin Schwendemann in 1898
At the end of August 1902, Dragutin left for military service in , then Budapest, and after two years and three months, at the end of 1904, he was discharged and left for . At the invitation of a friend, he left Vienna and in March 1905 went to , the Mecca of European painting at the time. Acquaintance with the established Munich painter Albert Knab and a circle of people from his painting studio impressed Dragutin so much that he decided to leave the goldsmith trade and devote himself to painting. In three months of working with Knab, he failed to sell a single painting, and with modest savings, he was forced to return to the goldsmith trade. On September 19, 1910, he married Josefina Teufel, daughter of the wealthy butcher, baker, and innkeeper Johan Teufel. From that marriage three children were born, the twins, Ella and Karlo, and another girl, Teodora. In 1914, Dragutin was drafted into the , and in 1915, he was transferred to the Galician front and remained there until the end of the war. He spent four years and two months in the war as a soldier. Between the two world wars, he worked up to ten hours a day in his workshop and shop and was involved in the social, cultural, and sports life in Slavonski Brod. Dragutin Schwendemann died on November 3, 1969.
Dragutin Schwendemann and Josefina Teufel on September 19, 1910
Underneath the roof of the Neo-Renaissance building, and motifs alternate with , the corbels of which are beautifully decorated with, among other things, a lion head . The air vents, which are located between these corbels and the pointed that are placed above the second floor windows, are beautifully framed with a garland. The second floor windows are flanked by two columns, which are crowned with a Corinthian and decorated with a , which can also be seen underneath these same windows. Between the two cornices that separate the first and second floors, you can see even more corbels, which in this case are embellished with foliage.
The Schwendemann family in 1924