Rudolf Perlberger was the eldest son of Max and Rosalia Perlberger, née Heinrich. He had four siblings, two of whom – Ida (1884–1887) and Leo (1890–1935) – died before the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich. His other two sisters Sidonia (1888–1942) and Caroline (1892–1942) died after deportation to the Izbica ghetto. Perlberger and his wife Maria née Huhzav(w)a (also: Hussawa) lived at Sechshauserstraße 49/9 in Vienna's 14th district and from 1923 at Kellermanngasse 6/5 in the 7th district. Maria Perlberger opened an antique book and art dealership in 1925 at Kellermanngasse 6, which her husband managed.

Although he was without religion and had left the Jewish community on 8 March 1923, he was considered a Jew under the Nuremberg Laws and after the annexation of Austria was persecuted by the Nazi regime. In April 1938, Maria Perlberger was obliged to complete a questionnaire sent to all businesses by Karl Berger, provisional director of the Vienna Guild of Book, Art and Music Dealers. Its primary aim was to register businesses deemed Jewish. Although Maria was classed as an "Aryan", on account of her husband her antique book and art dealership was included in the supplementary list of non-Aryan and politically unreliably book dealers in Vienna. Maria Perlberger's business at Kellermanngasse 6 was deregistered on 21 December 1938. In summer 1942 Rudolf and Maria Perlberger were forced to move from the apartment at Zieglergasse 92 in the 7th district, where they had lived since 1937, to a collective apartment at Tandelmarktgasse 8 in the 2nd district. Rudolf Perlberger was able to continue to deal in art sheets of low material value – including items owned by Sigmund Stiassny. He worked at home for Papierfabrik Meteor, Schönbrunner Straße 127 in Vienna's 5th district. He died of heart and lung disease on 20 December 1943 just eighteen months after the forced move at the Jewish hospital at Malzgasse 16 in the 2nd district.

Maria Perlberger survived the war but did not continue her antique book and art dealership. During the provenance research in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Graphic Collection it was determined that 352 graphic artworks had been obtained by it from the Viennese bookbinder Adolf Schmidt (1900–1986), who had purchased them from Perlberger during the Nazi period and donated them in 1986. On 5 November 2021 the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board therefore recommended the restitution of 319 of them to the legal successors of Rudolf Perlberger. The other thirty-three sheets had come from Sigmund Stiassny and had been sold by Perlberger to Adolf Schmidt between 1940 and 1943. At the same meeting, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended their restitution to Stiassny's heirs.