Magnificent Salon or Pivot Mirror

This piv­ot­ing mir­ror, which can with cer­tain­ty be described as a court­ly piece of fur­ni­ture from the first third of the 19^th cen­tu­ry, is a mas­ter­piece of the design lan­guage of its time and reflects in a per­fect man­ner the style and qual­i­ty of Dan­hauser. The Dan­hauser Impe­r­i­al and Roy­al Priv­i­leged Fur­ni­ture Man­u­fac­to­ry (“Danhauser‘schen K&K priv­i­legierte Möbelfab­rik”) is con­sid­ered the most impor­tant fur­ni­ture man­u­fac­tur­er in Vien­na of that era.

The rich­ly carved floor mir­ror, part­ly dec­o­rat­ed with mold­ed orna­men­ta­tion, is fin­ished in dark green and embell­ished with rich gild­ing. The grand mir­ror stands on pairs of feet con­nect­ed in an arched form, which are made in paw form and each dec­o­rat­ed with a large gild­ed acan­thus leaf. At the cen­ter of each pair of arched feet is a very fine­ly exe­cut­ed medal­lion with a bead­ed bor­der, adorned with a court­ly por­trait head with an updo in the Roman style.

The two round columns sup­port­ing the mir­ror are adorned with gild­ed foliage and ring dec­o­ra­tions and are each crowned by a small ampho­ra. Between the two columns is an oval ele­ment with a tre­foil dec­o­ra­tion, through which the hand-forged adjust­ment screw pass­es to secure the piv­ot­ing mir­ror in the desired position.

The mir­ror frame itself is dec­o­rat­ed all around with small tre­foils and is lined on its reverse side with yel­low silk. The floor mir­ror is crowned with a semi­cir­cu­lar crest, dec­o­rat­ed with fine ele­ments arranged in a radi­at­ing pat­tern. The piece is topped by a small ampho­ra on which stands a ful­ly sculpt­ed fig­ure poised dynam­i­cal­ly atop a globe, look­ing upward toward the sky.

Sim­i­lar designs can be found in the draw­ings of Josef Dan­hauser (see below), which today form part of the MAK col­lec­tion in Vienna.

The ​“Geymüller Schlös­sel,” an event venue in Vien­na, shows com­pa­ra­ble can­de­labra (see below) in its on-site col­lec­tion. The Bie­der­meier mir­ror pre­sent­ed here is an excel­lent exam­ple of the ele­gance and aes­thet­ic of Vien­nese design in the first third of the 19^th cen­tu­ry. As in all ear­li­er eras, there were excep­tion­al crafts­men who demon­strat­ed a remark­able sense for pro­por­tion and form, result­ing in objects of the high­est crafts­man­ship with great atten­tion to detail. These mas­ter­pieces were pri­mar­i­ly reserved for court­ly and aris­to­crat­ic clients.

The Aus­tri­an Muse­um of Applied Arts in Vien­na (MAK) owns the major­i­ty of the draw­ings of the ​“Dan­hauser Impe­r­i­al and Roy­al Priv­i­leged Fur­ni­ture Man­u­fac­to­ry,” com­pris­ing more than 2,500 draw­ings and sketch­es from the pat­tern cat­a­logue. This cat­a­logue includ­ed, among oth­er things, 153 chair mod­els, 56 daybeds, 179 types of chan­de­liers, and 124 win­dow cur­tains. All these mod­els were con­sec­u­tive­ly num­bered with­in their respec­tive prod­uct groups, with the light­ing sec­tion divid­ed into twelve groups … Please see images below.

The Dan­hauser fur­ni­ture man­u­fac­to­ry was found­ed in 1814 by the sculp­tor Joseph Ulrich Dan­hauser (1780 – 1829). It was one of the first com­pa­nies in Vien­na active in the field of inte­ri­or fur­nish­ings. Thanks to a spe­cial pro­duc­tion license, Dan­hauser was able to inte­grate all trades relat­ed to inte­ri­or out­fit­ting and car­ry out the nec­es­sary work under one roof. This includ­ed, above all, fur­ni­ture-mak­ing and uphol­stery, the pro­duc­tion of inte­ri­or light­ing, met­al­work, elab­o­rate cur­tains and bed­frames with their fit­tings, as well as small sculp­tur­al accessories.

The manufactory’s clien­tele came from across the Aus­tri­an monar­chy and from Ger­many, and the com­pa­ny main­tained dis­tri­b­u­tion branch­es in Graz and Budapest. Danhauser’s most pres­ti­gious and exten­sive com­mis­sion was the ren­o­va­tion of the palace of Arch­duke Karl (today the Alberti­na) around 1822.

The Dan­hauser fac­to­ry occu­pies an out­stand­ing posi­tion in the his­to­ry of Vien­nese fur­ni­ture con­struc­tion and inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion. The devel­op­ment of the Vien­nese fur­ni­ture style can be traced through Danhauser’s designs, which ini­tial­ly fol­lowed French mod­els such as those by Perci­er and Fontaine, but soon adopt­ed an inde­pen­dent character.

Per­son­al note:

This lav­ish­ly exe­cut­ed mir­ror was, in all like­li­hood, a com­mis­sioned work for a high-rank­ing aris­to­crat­ic client. The present mir­ror is almost cer­tain­ly one of the most dec­o­ra­tive­ly designed piv­ot or floor mir­rors that Dan­hauser is like­ly to have pro­duced for his clients in this form in his work­shops. Com­pa­ra­ble mod­els, most­ly in some­what sim­pler exe­cu­tion, are held in muse­ums and pri­vate collections.

As men­tioned above, one of Danhauser’s most impor­tant patrons was Arch­duke Carl, who between 1822 and 1825 com­mis­sioned fur­nish­ings for his palace, today’s Alberti­na in Vien­na. Dan­hauser received the com­mis­sion to pro­duce new fur­ni­ture for the entire palace and to exe­cute the ornate par­quet floors for the state rooms.

At that time, the Alberti­na was the largest Hab­s­burg res­i­den­tial palace in Vienna …

Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant and com­pa­ra­ble exam­ple can be found today in the Schloss­mu­se­um Gotha, in the so-called Napoleon Room. Along­side two impor­tant can­de­labra, the lav­ish Empire bed exe­cut­ed by Dan­hauser is pre­served there— the very bed in which Duke Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1784 – 1844) died in 1844 …

Com­pa­ra­bles:

Alberti­na, Vienna:

https://​www​.alberti​na​.at/​en/co…

https://​www​.alberti​na​.at/​site/…

As well as, at the Foun­da­tion Frieden­stein in Germany;

https://www.stiftung-friedenst…

Bed­room of Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha:

https://​my​.mat​ter​port​.com/show…