Display Cabinet, Design by Otto Prutscher (1880-1949)

Beau­ti­ful design of a dis­play cab­i­net by Otto Prutsch­er from the 1930s, for Dr. Hugo Winkler.

The dis­play cab­i­net and the low­er body of the fur­ni­ture are made in two parts and fine­ly veneered in Cau­casian wal­nut. The dis­play cab­i­net is equipped with two slid­ing glass doors, which can be locked with a round, nick­el-plat­ed lock, and three glass shelves. The low­er body stands on a pro­filed frame with tall legs. The two doors are equipped with round han­dles made of bakelite.

On the inside of the two doors, we find an inlaid inscrip­tion each stat­ing ​“Design: Otto Prutsch­er” and ​“Exe­cu­tion: L. A. Weber.”

The top plate of the body curves upwards at its lat­er­al ends in a slight­ly curved form, giv­ing the fur­ni­ture a del­i­cate Asian influ­ence. The tran­si­tion from the low­er body to the dis­play cab­i­net is inter­rupt­ed by a fine­ly pro­filed base which adds a cer­tain light­ness to the furniture.

A beau­ti­ful exam­ple of a very stream­lined piece of fur­ni­ture, which, through the skill­ful­ly incor­po­rat­ed round­ed ele­ments, acquires an ele­gant and almost fem­i­nine appearance.

This dis­play cab­i­net is depict­ed and described in the 2‑volume col­lec­tion book by Heim & Fritz Schedel­may­er pub­lished by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Arts Vienna.

“Otto Prutsch­er 1880 – 1949 Archi­tect and Design­er between Tra­di­tions and Mod­ernism” Vol­ume 1 Page 266, Illus­tra­tion 220

For Dr. Hugo Win­kler in Vien­na XII, Otto Prutsch­er designed a salon and din­ing room in 1931, both exe­cut­ed by the car­pen­ter Andreas L. Weber. A dis­play cab­i­net Fig. 220, two small con­soles 425, placed between the win­dows, three small tables, a daybed, an arm­chair, and some stools (“Causeusen”) have been pre­served as indi­vid­ual pieces of furniture.

On the inside of the dis­play cab­i­net, the inscrip­tions ​“Design Otto Prutsch­er” and ​“Exe­cu­tion L. A. Weber” are inlaid. Exact­ly the same sig­na­ture along with the year ​“MCMXXXI” is found on a liv­ing room cab­i­net with a bar sec­tion 427 with very com­plex inlays on the insides of two doors.

Otto Prutsch­er (1880−1949)

belonged to the first gen­er­a­tion of stu­dents at the Vien­na School of Arts and Crafts. His admis­sion in 1897 and instruc­tion by some of the promi­nent artists of the Vien­nese Mod­ernist move­ment, such as Josef Hoff­mann, Kolo­man Moser, Willibald Schul­meis­ter, and the painter Franz Matsch, pro­found­ly influ­enced Otto Prutscher’s styl­is­tic devel­op­ment. From 1907 onwards, Otto Prutsch­er worked for the Vien­na Work­shops. Like Josef Hoff­mann, he was an archi­tect and design­er, and like him, he taught at the Vien­na School of Arts and Crafts from 1909. He was a mem­ber of the most impor­tant artists’ asso­ci­a­tions such as the Vien­na Seces­sion, the Vien­na Work­shops, the Werk­bund, and more. He also col­lab­o­rat­ed with and worked for the most sig­nif­i­cant Vien­nese man­u­fac­to­ries of his time in var­i­ous dif­fer­ent fields. His incred­i­ble pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in archi­tec­ture and design makes him one of the greats among Vien­nese archi­tects and design­ers. Otto Prutsch­er was thus sig­nif­i­cant­ly involved in the devel­op­ment of Vien­nese Modernism.

Otto Prutsch­er was not only a busy archi­tect and one of the lead­ing applied artists in Vien­na at the begin­ning of the 20^th century.

In addi­tion to design­ing some of the large res­i­den­tial com­plex­es in Vien­na, he pri­mar­i­ly planned pri­vate and com­mer­cial build­ings as well as cof­fee­hous­es and their interiors.

He designed inte­ri­ors for many of Vien­na’s wealthy fam­i­lies, which were exe­cut­ed by the most promi­nent pro­duc­ers of his time, such as Jacob & Josef Kohn, Thonet, Por­tois & Fix, or J. & L. Lob­meyr. He also designed fur­ni­ture, porce­lain, glass­ware, cut­lery, met­al­work, jew­el­ry, watch­es, book cov­ers, tex­tiles, and more for the Vien­na Work­shops. His estate, which is now housed in the MAK — Muse­um of Applied Arts Vien­na, includes plans and archi­tec­tur­al pho­tographs as well as orig­i­nal designs for fur­ni­ture and applied art objects.

The muse­um ded­i­cat­ed its own exhi­bi­tion to him in 2019/2020 (Otto Prutsch­er. All Design­er of Vien­nese Mod­ernism, Novem­ber 20, 2019 — May 17, 2020).

Prove­nance of the furniture:

From the Schedl­may­er Col­lec­tion. Lit­er­a­ture: Otto Prutsch­er Archive, 1366; Uhlir, Sem­per Sur­sum, p. 122; Duit, Schedl­may­er, Otto Prutsch­er, Vol­ume 1, p. 266, No. 220.

The Schedl­may­er Col­lec­tion. A Dis­cov­ery! 10.09.2021 – 20.02.2022, MAK Vienna

The Aus­tri­an col­lec­tor cou­ple Her­mi (1941 – 2018) and Fritz Schedl­may­er (1939 – 2013) brought togeth­er a top-class selec­tion of arts and crafts objects and works of art from the first half of the 20^th cen­tu­ry. This large­ly unknown col­lec­tion will be pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic for the first time in autumn of 2021.

Watch Video I by click­ing here, Video II here.