Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser
Neisser was born in the Silesian town of Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, in Poland), the son of a well-known Jewish physician, Dr. Moritz Neisser. After he completed the elementary school in Münsterberg, Neisser enrolled in the St. Maria Magdalena School in Breslau (now Wrocław, in Poland). In this school, he was a contemporary of another great name in the history of medicine, Paul Ehrlich. He obtained the Abitur in 1872.
Albert Reuss
Albert Reuss was the son of Hungarian Jews, Ignaz Reisz (1855–1911) and Sidonia née Freund (1861–1928). Ignaz was a "Fleischhauermeister" and "Fleischhändler", a master butcher and meat trader. The couple at some stage moved to Malacky, in former Hungary, now Slovakia, where their first three sons were born. In the late 1880s, the family moved to Vienna, where Albert was born, followed by a further six children, three of whom died in infancy, leaving seven surviving children in all. The family name Reisz was changed by the Austrian authorities to Reiss.
From a young age, Albert became estranged from his family. A frail, sickly and vulnerable child, he seemed neither to fit into nor to belong to the family into which he was born. He suffered from ill-health and had considerable difficulties with social interaction throughout his life. He was introduced to the world of art by a rich uncle, Baron Andreas Ritter von Reisinger, who was married to his father's sister, and who appears to have instilled in the young boy a lifelong inferiority complex. Albert's artistic abilities emerged when he was only five years old, and at the age of 14, he applied, unsuccessfully, to the "Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien". Unable to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, he was obliged, on leaving school, to assist his father as a butcher. Given his delicate disposition and artistic sensibilities, working at the butchery was not an effective fit. There followed a series of equally unsuitable jobs, including salesman, childminder and actor, all of which ended in dismissal. These repeated experiences of rejection only added to his lack of self-worth. He became determined to teach himself by copying the Old Masters in the Belvedere Gallery and managed to gain several commissions for these paintings, as well as some commissions to paint portraits.