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Professor Diplomkaufmann Rudolf von Strasser von Györvär (April 2, 1919-March 10, 2014) was an extraordinary glass collector and scholar. Over a period of 50 years, he assembled one of the most important private collections of European glass dating from the Renaissance to the Biedermeier period. He will be remembered with affection by those who knew him and with respect by generations of collectors and scholars who did not have that pleasure. He is unique among collectors, not just because he assembled a remarkable collection and donated it to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, but also because he researched and published it in such learned detail. Indeed, his scholarship was at a level achieved by few specialized scholars in the field, despite the fact that glass collecting and research was mostly a hobby and not his principal line of work-although some might conclude from the number, size, and scope of his publications that glass research was a full-time career.
I first met Rudi (as friends called him), his wife (Daisy), his mother ("Tolly" or Antonia), and his three children (Christoph, Rudy, and Daisy) in 1973. I joined the staff of The Corning Museum of Glass that year and was in charge of the museum's collection of European glass from the Middle Ages to 1900. The knowledge I brought to the position was mainly limited to the history of English and American glassmaking. I had attended several of the museum's annual Seminars on Glass before joining the staff, so I had heard the Strasser name repeatedly from other collectors and from museum staff members who spoke of Rudi's collection with awe. I spent about two months looking at and handling the museum's European glass objects and reading what had been recorded about them before I felt ready to visit the Strasser home in Pelham Manor, outside New York City. I had some idea of what I would see, but from the moment I entered the Strassers' gracious home, I was awed by their antique glass, porcelain, and furniture. It was not a house overwhelmed by a collection, but it was tastefully and comfortably arranged in such a way that the glass collection fit seamlessly.
Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo glass drinking vessels were shown in lighted vitrines in...