Laundry Chest for the Servant’s Room in the Berlin apartment of Jerome Stonborough and Margarete Stonborough-Wittgenstein, 1905

On the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Margarete Wittgenstein (1882–1958) to New York industrialist Jerome Stonborough (1873–1938) in 1905 and the couple’s subsequent move to Berlin, steel tycoon Karl Wittgenstein (1847–1913) commissioned the two artists Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) and Koloman Moser (1868–1918) to design the interior of the newlyweds’ apartment. The designs were executed by the Wiener Werkstätte, which completed the apartment within the same year. Similar to the Eisler von Terramare Apartment, whose complete interior design was created by Moser in 1902, the interior design for this Berlin apartment was also conceptualized as a Gesamtkunstwerk, or universal work of art. The Laundry Chest as well as the small Table are taken from the servant’s room in the apartment. The furniture in this room was varnished white and blue and characterized by a clear and simple design vocabulary.

MTh, 2021