Museum-quality Chandelier and three arm Wall Lights, Design Josef Hoffmann

The eight-arm chan­de­lier and the three-arm wall sconces were exe­cut­ed in cast and repoussé brass.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing is the form of the large, flut­ed cen­tral bowls, from which the trum­pet-shaped arms extend. The shape used here is like­ly one of the most ele­gant designs for bowls of this peri­od. This form appears repeat­ed­ly, espe­cial­ly in Josef Hoffmann’s designs for sil­ver objects.

The crown­ing ele­ment of the cen­tral bowl on the chan­de­lier con­sists of a dec­o­ra­tive motif of grapes and heart-shaped leaves, which can also be found in many of Hoffmann’s designs. The large oval chain is a styl­is­tic fea­ture in its own right and tran­si­tions into a ceil­ing canopy that cor­re­sponds with the cen­tral bowl. The canopy is signed ​“JH” and ​“WIENER WERK­STÄTTE.”

The two three-arm wall sconces have been oper­at­ed with can­dles up to the present day; elec­tri­fi­ca­tion would of course be pos­si­ble upon request. The large, semi-cir­cu­lar cen­tral bowl of the wall sconces is fin­ished with a lid-shaped ele­ment crowned by a small sphere. The present chan­de­lier and the two wall sconces orig­i­nate from an impor­tant pri­vate col­lec­tion, the Schedl­may­er Col­lec­tion, and were already exhib­it­ed in the col­lec­tion pre­sen­ta­tion at the Leopold Muse­um (see more infor­ma­tion and video links below).

The chan­de­lier and wall sconces are high­ly sig­nif­i­cant muse­um-qual­i­ty objects, which we assume — if pro­duced in series at all — were made only in a very small num­ber. It is also pos­si­ble that they were spe­cial­ly com­mis­sioned as a unique work for an impor­tant client of Josef Hoffmann.

Josef Hoff­mann (1870 – 1956):
Josef Hoff­mann was born in 1870 in Pir­nitz, Moravia, into a social­ly and polit­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing era, which also marked the begin­ning of the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion with all its pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive aspects. In 1892, he began his archi­tec­tur­al stud­ies at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Vien­na under Carl von Hase­nauer and Otto Wag­n­er. He devel­oped an ear­ly enthu­si­asm for the Eng­lish-Scot­tish Arts & Crafts move­ment. Its vision was to infuse all areas of life with art, to design every­day and util­i­tar­i­an objects in a more beau­ti­ful and aes­thet­ic way, and thus to make artis­ti­cal­ly designed func­tion­al objects acces­si­ble to a broad­er social class. Hoff­mann, like his teacher Otto Wag­n­er, was of the opin­ion that art could even have a heal­ing effect on the human soul. 

They envi­sioned a much broad­er role for the archi­tect: from then on, the archi­tect should simul­ta­ne­ous­ly be a design­er and cre­ate all objects to be used with­in a space. Hoff­mann remained faith­ful to this cre­do through­out his life. At the young age of just 29, Hoff­mann was appoint­ed pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Arts in Vien­na. A sig­nif­i­cant step in his career fol­lowed in 1897, when he joined Gus­tav Klimt, Kolo­man Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Carl Moll, and oth­ers in found­ing the ​“Vien­na Seces­sion,” which saw itself as a counter-move­ment to the estab­lished art scene. Only six years lat­er, in 1903, he co-found­ed the Wiener Werk­stätte togeth­er with Kolo­man Moser and with the sup­port of the indus­tri­al­ist Fritz Waern­dor­fer.
Among Hoffmann’s first icon­ic mas­ter­pieces is the Sana­to­ri­um Purk­ers­dorf, com­plet­ed in 1904, in which he designed every­thing down to the small­est detail, from the inte­ri­or fur­nish­ings to the gar­dens. This Gesamtkunst­werk (total work of art) set almost rad­i­cal new stan­dards in the per­cep­tion of archi­tec­ture and design. One of Josef Hoffmann’s most impor­tant works, which ulti­mate­ly brought him inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, was the Palais Sto­clet in Brus­sels. In this build­ing, real­ized between 1905 and 1911, he was able to ful­ly achieve his vision of the Gesamtkunst­werk. Archi­tec­ture and design merge with dai­ly life; art becomes an aes­thet­ic part of our every­day existence.

An inter­est­ing aspect of the idea of the Gesamtkunst­werk is that the dis­tin­guished Dan­ish-Aus­tri­an mas­ter builder and archi­tect of Clas­si­cism and His­tori­cism, Theophil Edvard Hansen (1813 – 1891), had already envi­sioned a total work of art com­bin­ing build­ing and inte­ri­or and was able to real­ize this con­cept in sev­er­al of his projects in Vien­na. The strict and clear for­mal lan­guage of Hoffmann’s designs paved the way toward Mod­ernism and, like the designs of Adolf Loos, are works of time­less ele­gance, exe­cut­ed in the high­est pos­si­ble qual­i­ty and crafts­man­ship.
A mean­ing­ful quo­ta­tion comes from Le Cor­busier, who said of Josef Hoff­mann: “… today, when the new gen­er­a­tions … make the fruits of the labor of the true pio­neers their own, … it is only just … to express our grat­i­tude to men such as Pro­fes­sor Hoff­mann and to enter­pris­es as bold as the Wiener Werk­stätte. In the end, what remains is the indis­pens­able super­flu­ous — art.”

Ausstel­lung Leopold Muse­um Wien: Die Samm­lung Schedl­may­er. Eine Ent­deck­ung! (Exhi­bi­tion at Leopold Muse­um Vien­na: The Col­lec­tion Schedl­mayr. A rev­e­la­tion!) 10.09.2021 – 20.02.2022

The Aus­tri­an col­lec­tor cou­ple Her­mi (1941 – 2018) and Fritz Schedl­may­er (1939 – 2013) assem­bled a high-cal­iber selec­tion of dec­o­ra­tive arts objects and works of fine art from the first half of the 20^th cen­tu­ry. This large­ly unknown col­lec­tion was pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic for the first time in autumn 2021.

Video I, & Video II