The bank clerk Emil Iwnicki and his wife Amalie, née Wunderlich (born 15 February 1893 in Przemysl), lived at Schulz-Straßnitzky-Gasse 3 in Vienna's 9th district. After the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich, the couple were persecuted as Jews and had to give up jewellery and silver objects to the Dorotheum. On 28 November 1939 they were both registered in a "Sammelwohnung" (collective apartment) at Berggasse 27 in the 9th district. On 9 April 1942 Emil and Amalie Iwnicki were deported to Izbica in the Generalgouvernement. It is not known exactly when they perished. None of the 4,000 Austrian Jews deported to Izbica survived.

Between December 1941 and January 1943, the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum in Wien (State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna, now the MAK) acquired a number of silver objects from the Dorotheum from the jewellery and precious metals that Jews had been required to hand over since 1939. Provenance research has identified two candlesticks belonging to Emil and Amalie Iwnicki, which were restituted in 2014.