Husband and wife Josef Matsvanszky (1875–before 1940) and Cäcilie-Marie Matsvanszky (1868–1944?) owned a
famous and valuable art collection that was held at Vienna’s Imperial Palace (Wiener Hofburg) from 1922 until 1925. The Matsvanszky Collection comprised more than sixty works of Dutch, Flemish and Italian art produced between
the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The couple acquired most of their paintings in the Viennese art market during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The impetus to explore the Viennese collection was provided by the letters exchanged in 1940 by Cäcilie-Marie Matsvanszky and the then director of the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters in Zagreb, Artur Schneider, which are held in the archives of the Strossmayer Gallery. The analysis of various sources and contributions from Theodor von Frimmel seeks to explore the origins of the collection. There is also an attempt to trace the chronology of the acquisitions through the art trade into the collection, and to trace the fate of individual paintings up to the present day.