Viennese innovative spirit
Far away from the dusty stylistic idiom of historicism, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and Dagobert Peche are three designers of the Wiener Werkstätte who are represented at Dorotheum’s Jugendstil auction on 7 June 2023. In lieu of industrial mass production, original ideas and craftsmanship were encouraged. Instead of the floral decorations of early Jugendstil, geometric and innovative forms characterise the designs of the Wiener Werkstätte, such as Josef Hoffmann’s “Liqueur Service,” which will be offered at auction with an estimate of € 15,000-25,000, and Koloman Moser’s sweet tray (“Bonbonkörbchen”, € 6,000-10,000). Dagobert Peche was considered the most creative member of the Wiener Werkstätte. He produced particularly innovative works, such as an embroidery with two heads in three-quarter view (€ 9,000-15,000), until his untimely death in 1923.

Two futher highlights of the sale were produced by Wienerberger: Michael Powolny’s rare “Papageno” putto from c. 1916/20 (€ 30,000-50,000), and a fountain by Otto Prutscher (€ 8,000-15,000).

Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos: two rivals, two chairs
Josef Hoffmann’s design innovations also characterise the seating furniture that this all-rounder of Modernism designed for the Jacob & Josef Kohn company in the early 20th century – for example, four armchairs of model no. 720 (€ 14,000-20,000). For the same company, Hoffmann designed the armchair with the fantastic name of “Sitzmaschine” (seat machine) in 1901, which was also used in the Purkersdorf sanatorium (also planned by Hoffmann) (€ 14,000-20,000).

A comparison with another seat, designed by Hoffmann’s prominent competitor Adolf Loos, the “Knieschwimmer” reclining chair from 1906/07 (€ 10,000-15,000), shows the very different design principles of these two pioneers of modernism. On one side stood Josef Hoffmann, a founding member of the Vienna Secession in 1897 and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. On the other, Adolf Loos, who vehemently rejected Hoffmann’s style, taking an unequivocal stand in his polemical essay “Ornament and Crime” (1908).

Démetre Chiparus’s elegance and grace
Hardly any other sculptor embodies the zeitgeist of 1920s Paris like Démetre Chiparus. The Ballets Russes, founded by Sergei Diaghilev in 1909, were his main source of inspiration. His finely executed statuettes mostly depicted dancers in graceful poses and elaborate costumes. Society in the mid-1920s was particularly fascinated by non-European dances, as evidenced by the statuette “Egyptian Dancer” from around 1925 (€ 10,000-15,000). The “Roaring Twenties” and early 1930s were the peak of Chiparus’s career. His glorious rise was soon followed by a ruinous downfall. Together with his long-time companion and later wife Julien Luilllier, he led a profligate lifestyle, accumulated debts, and ultimately fell into poverty with the outbreak of World War II. Chiparus’s imaginative sculptures, such as “Les Amis de toujours” (€ 22,000-30,000), remain testaments to a transient golden decade.

The Golden Twenties and their fascination with dance also live on in a particularly valuable collector’s piece by German artist Ferdinand Preiss. His bronze “Torch Dancer” created in Berlin in around 1925 will be offered at auction with an estimate between 22,000 and 30,000 euros.