metal wreaths with oak leaves and acorns; different levels of corrosion, small objects partly missing; signs of age and use; diameter: 70 cm. (MP)

Literature:
Stadtpark station: Zednicek, Otto Wagner, Zeichnungen und Pläne, p. 75, no. 63; cf. Pilgramgasse station: etching in colours, Franz Zadrazil (Dorotheum, 23.11.2009);
Fogarassy, Otto Wagner, Die Wiener Stadtbahn, p. 163, p. 189 (Stadtpark), p. 171 (Kettenbrückengasse), p. 211 (Rossauer Lände). In 1894 Otto Wagner was appointed as artistic advisor for planning to the “Commission für Verkehrsanlagen” (Transport Commission), inter alia for the station buildings of the Wiener Stadtbahn, Vienna’s public transportation system. Together with Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, Max Fabiani and Josef Plecnik, he drafted a total of 2,000 plans for the new urban railway project, which was designed to match the appearance of a modern metropolis. Thus wrote Ludwig Hevesi about the transportation system: “(...) They took this ‘Secessionist’ train with good spirits, in and out of Vienna, to prove that the official building authorities who had, in the first drafts, filled the balustrades of all viaducts with fortress merlons, were wrong. Kilometre-long viaducts with kilometre-long merlon wreaths, in the middle of Vienna and all around it, was the beautiful dream of this brilliant planner.” (Ludwig Hevesi, Ludwig Hevesi, Acht Jahre Secession, Kritik -Polemik - Cronik, Vienna 1906, p. 203.)