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Auction 093A: Highlights of designhistory VII - 'table culture' - 07.12.2010

Auction 093A on 07.12.2010
Highlights of designhistory VII - 'table culture'

Viewing:
02./03. Dec. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
04./05. Dec. 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
06. Dec. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

 

Viennese delights of the table!

A dining table set with beautiful porcelain, silverware, shining glasses, groomed table cloth and matching flower decoration even today belongs to the most estethic forms of expression of our culture. Holidays make minimalists reach for candlesticks, their grandmothers’ knife rests and sauce boats and caviar coolers. Quittenbaum offers around 400 lots of table culture from the 20th century in their Highlights of Design History auction on 7 December. Among the most interesting pieces of the choice one can find exquisite rarities by the protagonists of the Viennese Art Nouveau, Josef Hoffmann and Kolo Moser.

A flower vase of four trumpet-shaped chalices of silver-plated alpacca is one of the earliest designs by Josef Hoffmann, estimated at € 40,000 – 50,000. A watercolour of its design can be found in the archives of the Wiener Werkstätte. Altough Hoffmann preferred geometric patterns for his designs at this time, he found a rather curved, tulip-like shape for his four-parted vase.

Simply elegant also his ‚Merkur’ breakfast set, showing a pattern of gold and black stripes, consisting of covered pot, hot-water pot, creamer, sugar bowl and ten cups and saucers, dating from around 1910/ 11. This execution of the set had been exhibited at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in 1912. Even single pieces of the ‚Merkur’ pattern can hardly be found on the art market (Estimate: € 6,000 – 7,000). The Zurich Museum Bellerive displays one single pot. Being of excellent condition, the set is a must-have for all Hoffmann aficionados. The same applies to his chair with seven balls, designed circa 1907/08, that is estimated at € 25,000 – 30,000.

Knock-down examples for Kolo Moser’s love of decoration are two chairs whose backs show an inlaid pattern with a dove holding an olive twig in its beak, made of a rarer kind of maple, rosewood and mother-of-pearl. Moser’s forte lay in decoration. Using exquisite materials, he realised geometric, floral and figurative ornaments. The chairs with elmwood veneer belonged to an ensemble with table and credenza that had been designed for an aristocrat circa 1904. Most of the furniture is displayed at the Badische Landesmuseum