Viennese Cabinet, around 1906/10

Elab­o­rate­ly Craft­ed Fur­ni­ture Piece by the renowned Vien­nese Fur­ni­ture Man­u­fac­tur­er Bern­hard Ludwig.

Two stacked cubic ele­ments rest on a closed plinth. The upper sec­tion is broad­er and over­hang­ing, fea­tur­ing two doors and a con­vex front, with two com­part­ments inside. The low­er sec­tion, which sits direct­ly on the plinth, con­tains four draw­ers.
What makes this design excep­tion­al — besides the intri­cate mar­quetry and fit­tings — are the four rich­ly carved side ele­ments adorned with foliage, which visu­al­ly embrace the piece from root to crown with vine-like leaf motifs. The rich­ly Art Nou­veau-styled brass fit­tings are exe­cut­ed in sil­ver-plat­ed repoussé work. The exte­ri­or of the piece is veneered in wal­nut, while the inte­ri­or is fin­ished in birch. The lav­ish inlays are craft­ed from fine veneers such as thu­ja, maple, and rose­wood.

All locks are signed ​“Bern­hard Lud­wig Wien” and num­bered 839. This excep­tion­al piece, most like­ly pro­duced in very lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties and usu­al­ly made to cus­tom order, was part of a din­ing room ensem­ble design titled Heimat and referred to in pre­served records as a ​“sil­ver cab­i­net.“
An iden­ti­cal din­ing room ensem­ble is held in the col­lec­tion of the Muse­um of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vien­na.

A detailed doc­u­men­ta­tion of this fur­ni­ture can be found in the lit­er­a­ture: Vera J. Behal, ​“Möbel des Jugend­stils”, Col­lec­tion of the Aus­tri­an Muse­um of Applied Arts, Vien­na, illus­tra­tion on page 197, no. 149.

Bern­hard Lud­wig was among the lead­ing fur­ni­ture man­u­fac­tur­ers in the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Danube Monar­chy. As a fur­ni­ture and inte­ri­or out­fit­ter with branch­es in Vien­na, Brno, Tri­este, Bucharest, Cairo, and Alexan­dria, the com­pa­ny made both sim­ple fur­ni­ture in series as well as high-qual­i­ty inte­ri­ors. It oper­at­ed inter­na­tion­al­ly, fur­nish­ing cas­tles and res­i­dences, includ­ing those of the Roman­ian roy­al court. Addi­tion­al­ly, Lud­wig, as a court cab­i­net­mak­er of the His­tori­cist era, played a key role in the devel­op­ment of Vienna’s Ringstrasse, con­tribut­ing to the inte­ri­ors of the Palace of Jus­tice, Par­lia­ment, and the Burgth­e­ater.
Beyond his work as a fur­ni­ture out­fit­ter, Lud­wig earned a rep­u­ta­tion as an inven­tive cre­ator of var­i­ous devices and tech­niques, such as the brand­ing iron, the water motor, and the veneer peel­ing machine.

In addi­tion to his exten­sive pro­duc­tion, the com­pa­ny par­tic­i­pat­ed in numer­ous inter­na­tion­al exhi­bi­tions, includ­ing the 1873 World’s Fair in Vien­na, the 1883 Inter­na­tion­al Elec­tri­cal Exhi­bi­tion in Vien­na, the 1888 Jubilee Trade Exhi­bi­tion in Vien­na, the 1888 World’s Fair in Barcelona, the 1898 Jubilee Exhi­bi­tion in Vien­na, the 1903 – 1904 Win­ter Exhi­bi­tion at the Impe­r­i­al Roy­al Aus­tri­an Muse­um of Art and Indus­try in Vien­na, the 1906 Impe­r­i­al-Roy­al Aus­tri­an Exhi­bi­tion in Lon­don, and the 1908 Kun­stschau in Vien­na.

His­to­ry:

The fur­ni­ture work­shop ​“Bern­hard Lud­wig” was found­ed by its name­sake, Bern­hard Hierony­mus Lud­wig (March 2, 1834, Mülsen St. Jakob – Sep­tem­ber 12, 1897, Vien­na). He learned the trade of car­pen­try from his father, Johann August Lud­wig (June 26, 1796 – June 12, 1875) in Mülsen, Sax­ony. After com­plet­ing his train­ing in his father’s work­shop between 1848 and 1850, Lud­wig embarked on a journeyman’s tour in June 1851. This led him from Leipzig, Halle, Braun­schweig, and Wolfen­büt­tel to Ham­burg, where he stayed for two years and took draw­ing lessons. After being dis­charged from mil­i­tary ser­vice in his home­land, Lud­wig arrived in Vien­na in 1855 via Prague, where he ini­tial­ly worked as a carpenter’s assis­tant and work­shop fore­man for Michael Win­ter, Philipp Schmidt, Bern­hard Wör­mann, Theodor Uhl, and Andreas Matyasovsky.

At the same time, he attend­ed the pri­vate draw­ing school of Got­t­lob Göhre (d. ¹⁸⁵⁸⁄₅₉) in Vienna’s Gumpen­dor­fer Straße 117, estab­lished in 1852. Thanks to his remark­able draw­ing tal­ent, he stood out quick­ly. In May 1858, Lud­wig com­plet­ed a sculp­ture train­ing under Hein­rich Beck­er (d. Sep­tem­ber 1871), who also worked at that loca­tion. After Göhre’s death, Lud­wig briefly took over his draw­ing school. In April 1862, he was grant­ed Aus­tri­an cit­i­zen­ship, and on Novem­ber 20 of the same year, he opened his own draw­ing school for car­pen­ters — ini­tial­ly locat­ed at Wind­müh­le 108, and from 1863, also in Gumpen­dor­fer Straße 117, Vien­na VI. The school like­ly remained in oper­a­tion until 1864. Its fund­ing came from the income gen­er­at­ed by a wood­en wash­ing machine he patent­ed in 1860 and suc­cess­ful­ly mar­ket­ed through­out the monar­chy.

In 1867, Lud­wig estab­lished his own car­pen­try work­shop at the same Gumpen­dor­fer Straße 117 address. Among his first employ­ees was August Friedrich Ungeth­üm (Novem­ber 4, 1834 – Sep­tem­ber 30, 1909), who would lat­er become a renowned art fur­ni­ture man­u­fac­tur­er. Dur­ing this time, Lud­wig received numer­ous com­mis­sions for fur­ni­ture and inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tions from noble and upper-bour­geois fam­i­lies, includ­ing the Liecht­en­stein, Karoly, Györ­gy, Volpi­ni, Hut­ter, and Cil­li fam­i­lies.

The year 1873 was both a bless­ing and a curse: while he enjoyed suc­cess at the Vien­na World’s Fair, a dev­as­tat­ing fire destroyed much of his work­shop. In 1874, he was grant­ed the pres­ti­gious title of Impe­r­i­al and Roy­al Court Sup­pli­er (k.k. Hofliefer­ant). That same year, he tem­porar­i­ly relo­cat­ed to Mari­ahil­fer Straße 73 and Ester­házy­gasse 24, before set­tling in Münzwardein­gasse 2 in Vien­na VI in 1877. He also estab­lished satel­lite branch­es in Suben, Upper Aus­tria, and in Karthaus (Valdice), Bohemia. In 1878, he was named Impe­r­i­al and Roy­al Aus­tri­an and Roman­ian Court Cab­i­net­mak­er (k.u.k. österr. und königl. rumän. Hof-Kun­st­tis­chler).

At the 1883 Inter­na­tion­al Elec­tri­cal Exhi­bi­tion in Vien­na, Lud­wig pre­sent­ed his self-invent­ed elec­tric brand­ing iron, which he lat­er replaced with his patent­ed pyrog­ra­phy (brand tech­nique). This cost-effec­tive method enabled the cre­ation of flat and high reliefs in wood and served as a sub­sti­tute for intri­cate inlay work. His inven­tion drew inter­na­tion­al inter­est, and he licensed patents in Great Britain and the USA.

In 1886, anoth­er store was opened at Großer Platz 14 in Brno, Czech Repub­lic. In 1889, archi­tect Carl Lang­ham­mer (1840 – 1906) was com­mis­sioned to con­vert the head­quar­ters at Münzwardein­gasse 2 into a rep­re­sen­ta­tive res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial build­ing, into which the fam­i­ly moved in 1892. The base­ment and first floor served exhi­bi­tion pur­pos­es, while the upper floors became their pri­vate res­i­dence.

Due to grow­ing suc­cess and demand, a sec­ond fac­to­ry with a sawmill and con­struc­tion join­ery was planned near the Liesing train sta­tion in Vien­na XXI­II in 1895. The design was han­dled by Lud­wig’s eldest son and name­sake, archi­tect Bern­hard Lud­wig (August 16, 1866 – Novem­ber 29, 1939), togeth­er with Fer­di­nand Franz Bere­hi­nak (May 6, 1863 – July 11, 1927). The 63-year-old founder did not live to see its com­ple­tion — he passed away on Sep­tem­ber 12, 1897.

After Bern­hard Ludwig’s death, his wid­ow Pauline Lud­wig, née Janik (Jan­u­ary 15, 1842 – August 22, 1913), and his son Bern­hard Lud­wig con­tin­ued run­ning the com­pa­ny. In 1898, the son was also grant­ed the title of Impe­r­i­al and Roy­al Court Sup­pli­er (k.k. Hofliefer­ant) and suc­cess­ful­ly expand­ed the com­pa­ny until World War I.
In 1897, a rela­tion­ship with King Car­ol I of Roma­nia, a patron of the arts, brought the firm major com­mis­sions for fur­nish­ing roy­al palaces in Sina­ia (Pelișor, Peleș, and Foișor) and Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest.

In 1900, the Brno loca­tion moved from Großer Platz 14 to Basteigasse 18, and in 1907 to Basteigasse 4. In 1905, anoth­er branch opened at Via Sta­dion 16 in Tri­este. From May 16, 1916, Bern­hard Lud­wig’s wife Euge­nie Lud­wig, née Vau­goin (Decem­ber 30, 1873 – Novem­ber 5, 1950), became autho­rized sig­na­to­ry of the busi­ness. She came from the long-estab­lished sil­ver­smith dynasty ​“Jarosin­s­ki & Vau­goin.” By the out­break of World War I, the firm employed 400 to 500 work­ers.

How­ev­er, the after­math of the war and the Great Depres­sion forced the com­pa­ny to close the Liesing fac­to­ry in 1929. On Sep­tem­ber 15, 1942, the busi­ness passed to Ludwig’s daugh­ter Pauline Han­re­ich-Lud­wig (Sep­tem­ber 30, 1916 – Decem­ber 13, 1998). On March 29, 1943, the Tri­este branch was dis­solved. On Jan­u­ary 1, 1970, the com­pa­ny was con­vert­ed into a lim­it­ed part­ner­ship, with Pauline Han­re­ich-Lud­wig and Dipl.-Ing. and politi­cian Georg Han­re­ich (b. Octo­ber 22, 1939, Vien­na) as part­ners. In 1976, the com­pa­ny filed for bank­rupt­cy.

The lega­cy of the fam­i­ly busi­ness lives on through the Bern­hard Lud­wig Archive, man­aged by Bern­hard Han­re­ich (b. June 7, 1945, Suben), broth­er of Georg Han­re­ich, and through the Kreativ­fab­rik B. Lud­wig Ges.m.b.H., an artist stu­dio hub locat­ed in the for­mer fac­to­ry build­ings at Münzwardein­gasse in Vien­na VI. A fur­ni­ture restora­tion work­shop is oper­at­ed at Feldegg Cas­tle in Pram, Upper Aus­tria, by Georg Hanreich’s son, Bern­hard Han­re­ich (b. August 29, 1967, Vien­na).

Lit­er­a­ture:
​“Wag­n­er, Hoff­mann, Loos und das Möbelde­sign der Wiener Mod­erne”, p. 147 ff.,
Artists, Patrons, Pro­duc­ers, vol. 37, edit­ed by Eva B. Ottill­inger, text by Dr. Ste­fan Üner, M MD.