A rare silver and moss agate casket by Josef Hoffmann
A rare silver and moss agate casket by Josef Hoffmann
Cuboid box on four oval disc supports. The front, cover and back of the casket mounted with finely carved transluscent moss agate plaques in slender surrounds with frieze designs. The sides with stylised repoussé palmettes and subtle tendril patterns. Gilt interior. H 12; width 16.9; depth 11.2 cm, weight 970 g.
Vienna, marks of the Wiener Werkstätte, designed by Josef Hoffmann, around 1910.
Josef Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) in 1903 together with Kolomann Moser and the banker Fritz Wärndörfer as an artists' manufacturing association inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement in England.
They were soon joined by like-minded individuals such as Dagobert Peche and Otto Prutscher, as well as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, who also joined the movement. Together they strove to renew art through a return to the principles of craftsmanship, whereby all aspects of life were regarded as an artistic unity. Thus, in close collaboration with the Wiener Werkstätte, the Vienna Secession created designs for buildings, furniture, textiles, goldsmith's work, and ceramics eschewing the abundant floral ornament of early Jugendstil in favour of a new geometric and abstract style that can be seen today as a precursor to Art Deco. The famous Palais Stoclet in Brussels, with its wall frieze designs by Gustav Klimt (1905 - 1911), as well as the Villa Ast in Vienna (1909 - 1911), are examples of the movement's unified works of art, the fascination for which has remained unbroken to the present day.
An identical casket by Josef Hoffmann bearing the model number S1790 for the year 1910 can be found in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, MAK, in Vienna (inv. no. WWF 94-110-4). The MAK also houses the original design sketches.
Provenance
John Endlich art dealers, Haarlem, 2015; important Belgian collection.
Literature
For more on Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte see Werner Schweiger, Meisterwerke der Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna 1990, with numerous illustrations, p. 43 ff. Cf. also vat. Wiener Silber, Modernes Design 1780-1918, Ostfildern-Ruit 2003, p. 176 ff. On the works for the Palais Stoclet and the Villa Ast, see Gabriele Fahr-Becker, Wiener Werkstätte 1903 - 1932, Cologne 2022, p. 42 ff. For Adolf Wertnik's maker's mark, see ibid. p. 221.
Bid on this lot
A rare silver and moss agate casket by Josef Hoffmann
Cuboid box on four oval disc supports. The front, cover and back of the casket mounted with finely carved transluscent moss agate plaques in slender surrounds with frieze designs. The sides with stylised repoussé palmettes and subtle tendril patterns. Gilt interior. H 12; width 16.9; depth 11.2 cm, weight 970 g.
Vienna, marks of the Wiener Werkstätte, designed by Josef Hoffmann, around 1910.
Josef Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) in 1903 together with Kolomann Moser and the banker Fritz Wärndörfer as an artists' manufacturing association inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement in England.
They were soon joined by like-minded individuals such as Dagobert Peche and Otto Prutscher, as well as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, who also joined the movement. Together they strove to renew art through a return to the principles of craftsmanship, whereby all aspects of life were regarded as an artistic unity. Thus, in close collaboration with the Wiener Werkstätte, the Vienna Secession created designs for buildings, furniture, textiles, goldsmith's work, and ceramics eschewing the abundant floral ornament of early Jugendstil in favour of a new geometric and abstract style that can be seen today as a precursor to Art Deco. The famous Palais Stoclet in Brussels, with its wall frieze designs by Gustav Klimt (1905 - 1911), as well as the Villa Ast in Vienna (1909 - 1911), are examples of the movement's unified works of art, the fascination for which has remained unbroken to the present day.
An identical casket by Josef Hoffmann bearing the model number S1790 for the year 1910 can be found in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, MAK, in Vienna (inv. no. WWF 94-110-4). The MAK also houses the original design sketches.
Provenance
John Endlich art dealers, Haarlem, 2015; important Belgian collection.
Literature
For more on Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte see Werner Schweiger, Meisterwerke der Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna 1990, with numerous illustrations, p. 43 ff. Cf. also vat. Wiener Silber, Modernes Design 1780-1918, Ostfildern-Ruit 2003, p. 176 ff. On the works for the Palais Stoclet and the Villa Ast, see Gabriele Fahr-Becker, Wiener Werkstätte 1903 - 1932, Cologne 2022, p. 42 ff. For Adolf Wertnik's maker's mark, see ibid. p. 221.
