
1897–1907
This chest for photographs was included in the Vienna Seccession’s installation at the 1902 Exhibition of Art and Industry installation in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany. It embodies Josef Hoffmann’s ideas of furniture design prior to his involvement with the founding of the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. Conceived as a piece of miniature architecture, the chest combines the sinuous curves of turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau with the sturdiness and simplicity of late 19th-century English Arts and Crafts furniture.