Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy belongs to the commercial record as a figure whose ventures outlasted the conditions that produced them.

The record lists Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy as German banker; father of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born at Berlin in 1776. His recorded nationality is Germany.

This was the age of chartered companies and long-distance trade, when a single voyage could make or ruin a house.

He worked as banker and merchant.

Commercial success is easy to measure and hard to interpret; timing and market do much of the work.

That the business was built from Germany shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.

Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy died in 1835, aged 59. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.