Rudolf Bittmann, born in Vienna in 1880, was the only son of Marie Mathilde and Ignaz Bittmann, a successful textile entrepreneur. As an underwear and knitwear manufacturer, Ignaz Bittmann had managed to become a supplier to the Imperial Royal Court and Chamber and founded the Kinder- und Damenmodenpalais Bittmann (Bittmann Children's and Ladies' Fashion Palace)  at Kärntnerstraße 12 in the centre of Vienna. On 10 January 1905, Rudolf Bittmann joined his father's company as an authorised signatory. Two months later, on 14 March 1905, he married Martha Katz in the Vienna City Temple. The couple had three sons: Hans (1905), Otto (1906) and Karl (1910). After the death of his father in 1913, Rudolf Bittmann took over the business. As an art connoisseur and lover, he built up a small art collection, which focussed on glass and miniatures, but also included silver, porcelain, a few paintings, books and jewellery. He was a lender to the 1922 Exhibition of Glass from the Classicism, Empire and Biedermeier Periods at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, now the MAK, as well as to the International Miniatures Exhibition at the Albertina in 1924 and the exhibitions Die schöne Wienerin (The Beautiful Viennese Woman)  in 1930 and Das Wiener Kind (The Viennese Child)  in 1931 at the Galerie Neumann & Salzer. In 1934, he was a member of the exhibition committee of the Austrian National Exhibition of Industry, Art, Travel, Sport held in London's Dorland Hall. In the same year, Otto and Karl Bittmann were granted power of attorney over their father's company.

After the annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich in March 1938, Rudolf Bittmann and his family were subjected to persecution. The children's fashion business was ‘aryanised’, and in order to pay the taxes imposed by the Nazi regime, Rudolf Bittmann was forced not only to sell his house at Kupferschmiedgasse 2/corner of Kärntnerstraße, but also to have his art collection, estimated to be worth just over RM 41,000 according to the declaration of assets, sold at the Adolf Weinmüller art auction house in Vienna. The Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum (State Arts and Crafts Museum) acquired three glasses from the Bittmann Collection at the auction on 8 and 9 December 1938: a glass beaker designed by G. Mohn, Vienna 1812, a Ranft beaker designed by A. Kothgasser, Vienna 1827 and a lithyalin glass with bronze base and lid, Bohemia, around 1830; the Albertina auctioned two miniatures on ivory: Moritz Daffinger, Portrait of a Lady and Robert Theer, Portrait of a Gentleman and the Österreichische Galerie secured a miniature by Moritz Daffinger, Portrait of his Wife. Rudolf and Martha and their son Otto Bittmann fled to Palestine, while their sons Hans and Karl emigrated to Spain and France respectively.

After the end of the Second World War, Rudolf and Martha Bittmann returned to Vienna. In 1956, the restitution commission at the provincial court for civil law matters granted the application for repayment of the passport levy to the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, which had been enforced in 1939, in the amount of almost 21,000 schillings; the house at Kupferschmiedgasse 2 was returned to Rudolf Bittmann in a restitution settlement in the same year. However, the Federal Monuments Office was unable to establish the whereabouts of his art collection in 1957. Based on the results of systematic provenance research following the adoption of the Austrian Art Restitution Act in 1998, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the return of the three miniatures from the Bittmann Collection from the Albertina and the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere on 18 August 2000 and the return of the three glasses from the MAK - Museum of Applied Arts on 8 October 2013. The restitutions took place in 2013 and 2014.

Susanne Hehenberger, based on the research of Leonhard Weidinger, 30 October 2024