Parlor Cabinet, 1901

In the course of his teaching activities at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, Koloman Moser (1868–1918) further extended his network of Austrian manufacturers and producers. Among his new contacts were the bentwood furniture producers J. & J. Kohn, with whom he would cooperate until 1906. The artist began his work as a designer for the bentwood manufacturers with the 1901/02 winter exhibition shown at the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, designing the parlor cabinet, which captivates with its clear structure and unornamented design vocabulary, for one of the exhibition booths. The piece is a glass cabinet with two square corpora which are encased at the front and the back with a continuous bentwood frame. It features visible metal rivets on the sides as well as four brass spheres on the edges of the feet. The parlor cabinet was presented in 1902 at an arts-and-crafts exhibition in Turin together with the Armchair.

MTh, 2021