Skip to main content

Wardrobe, from a bedroom suite designed for the Anton and Sonja Knips Family country residence, Seeboden, Austria

Date
1903
made in
Vienna, Austria, Europe
Classification
Furniture
Current Location
On View, Gallery 133W
Dimensions
72 3/4 x 41 1/8 x 21 1/2 in. (184.8 x 104.5 x 54.6 cm)
Credit Line
Richard Brumbaugh Trust in memory of Richard Irving Brumbaugh and in honor of Grace Lischer Brumbaugh
Rights
© Josef Hoffmann
Object Number
1:1995
NOTES
This black stained, two door wardrobe with nickel-plated brass drawer pulls was designed by Josef Hoffmann. Like other Viennese designers in the early 1900s, Hoffmann transformed English and Continental Art Nouveau and developed his own style of restrained, primarily geometric, ornamentation.

Perhaps more than any other Viennese designer, Hoffmann was influenced by the grace and refined structural rigor of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work. The Vienna early modern style was influenced by Mackintosh, who exhibited in the Vienna Secession's Eighth Exhibition in 1900.
1903 -
Anton Knips, Seeboden, Austria

by mid-1980s
Galerie Metropol, Vienna, Austria

mid-1980s - 1995
Manfred Ludewig, Berlin, Germany, purchased from Galerie Metropol [1]

1995 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, purchased from Manfred Ludewig [2]


Notes:
[1] Manfred Ludewig stated that he had purchased the wardrobe from Galerie Metropol about "15 to 20 years ago," per telephone conversation, Manfred Ludewig and C. McCarty, January 4, 2004; copy of email note to Pam Stewart, dated January 4, 2004 [SLAM document files].

[2] Invoice dated January 18, 1995 [SLAM document files]. Minutes of the Collections Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, February 1, 1995.

We regularly update records, which may be incomplete. If you have additional information, please contact us at provenance@slam.org.