Lucian Brunner (1850 – 1914) spent his childhood and early adulthood in Hohenems and St. Gallen, but was also often in Trieste and traveling. The son of Marco Brunner and Regina Brunner, née Brettauer, worked at the “Jacob Brunner Bank” in St. Gallen until 1888, but eventually settled in Vienna together with his wife Malwine Mandel and their three boys; here he was active as industrialist and politician. He became involved in a small liberal-oriented party, the “Viennese Democrats,” assuming functions as Viennese municipal council member, as chairman of the “Demokratischer Zentralverein” (Democratic central association), and as publisher of the associated newspaper Volkstimme. In the Viennese municipal council, he repeatedly confronted the anti-Semitic mayor Karl Lueger, for instance, when preventing subsidies from tax money for a church construction or when contradicting nationalistic positions. Lucian Brunner always kept in touch with his home community in Hohenems and donated significant sums for the construction of the hospital and the gymnasium. When he passed away on April 15, 1914, he left behind a bequest for a non-denominational school in his hometown of Hohenems. The Hohenems municipal council refused to accept the bequest. The sketch shows the Brunner family as typical representatives of Vienna’s upper bourgeoisie whose evenings were used for self-representation in their own parlor.