What Richard Winkler describes in his book “From Peddler to Multimillionaire” is impressive: By selling inexpensively acquired paintings and objects to wealthy customers, Julius Böhler was already achieving fantastic returns at the end of the 19th century.
The story is a German version of the American success story “From rags to riches”. Its hero is called Julius Böhler, born in February 1860 in the hamlet of Schmalenberg in the Black Forest. The art shop he founded in Munich is still in existence today in the fifth generation, although the exhibition rooms are now in Starnberg. Böhler’s rise to become one of the most important art dealers in the country was astonishingly fast; there is something fairytale-like about his career, or rather: his career sounds as if it had been invented by a scriptwriter for a multi-part television series in which the audience is shown how someone makes his way despite all adversities. But Böhler’s story is not fiction, it actually happened.