A century after its founding, the objects of art—and of everyday use—fashioned by the artisans of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop) still captivate collectors with their innovative yet practical designs and their impeccable handcraftsmanship. These items have achieved increasingly lofty valuations at auction in recent years, as appreciation of the workshop has grown.

CLEAN LINES, such as those in this tea set designed by Josef Hoffmann, were a hallmark of the early Wiener  Werkstätte.

Christie’s celebrated the Wiener Werkstätte’s 100th anniversary in December with an impressive array of handicrafts produced by the workshop, including many rare pieces new to the market. An impressive 75 percent of the 59 lots offered found buyers. The top lot, an enameled metal hostess pin designed by Berthold Loffler in 1908 for the Kabaret Fledermaus (a famous Viennese cabaret that was outfitted from floor to ceiling with Wiener Werkstätte designs), soared past the pre-auction high estimate of $3,500 to fetch $86,040. Other highlights included a hammered silver and ivory tea and coffee service designed by Hoffmann that sold for $71,700, and a 1906 Gitterwerk (square-perforated metal) jardiniere, also by Hoffmann, that went for the same amount, easily surpassing the $50,000 pre-auction estimate. The cooperative’s Gitterwerk designs in sheet iron, alpaca (silver plate), brass or silver epitomized the early Wiener Werkstätte aesthetic.

WIENER WERKSTÄTTE  tazza.

“There is always demand for the best Wiener Werkstätte objects, particularly for pieces by its top designers,” says Nicola Redway, head of 20th-Century Decorative Arts at Christie’s. “Top quality silver and jewelry are especially popular and bring the highest prices.” She believes that the Wiener Werkstätte’s relatively small output and dwindling supply—as more pieces find their way into museums and private collections—will lead to ever-higher valuations for the remaining pieces.

This belief is borne out by recent sales. Sotheby’s Important 20th-Century Design auction in December featured 16 lots by Wiener Werkstätte designers. Silver and furniture attracted the greatest interest. Among the highlights were two silver pieces by Moser: a circa 1905-1910 honeypot on a stand that brought $15,600, nearly double its presale estimate, and a circa 1910 Gitterwerk tray that fetched $11,400. Four lacquered bentwood seven-ball side chairs sporting seven small wooden balls down the center of their backs, designed by Hoffmann in 1906, sold from $36,000 to $42,000 each; the top price estimate before the auction had been $20,000.
      

Everyday Inspirations
Inspired by the late 19th century British Arts and Crafts Movement, which advocated handcrafted furnishings in the home, and by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s spare, geometric furniture designs, the Wiener Werkstätte produced a variety of everyday objects that, in addition to metalwork, furniture, glassware and graphic design, included ceramics, textiles, fashion and bookbinding. The colony of workshops, whose designers were skilled in a variety of media, aimed to beautify daily life, bridge the gap between the fine and applied arts, and integrate all design elements into a Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork). 

WIENER WERKSTÄTTE  caviar bowl.

“We wish to establish intimate contact between public, designer and craftsman, and to produce good, simple domestic requisites…. Usefulness is our first requirement, and our strength has to lie in good proportions and materials well handled,” Hoffmann and Moser wrote in the Wiener Werkstätte manifesto. “The work of the art craftsman is to be measured by the same yardstick as that of the painter and the sculptor.” 

Moving away from the ornate Art Nouveau style, early Wiener Werkstätte designs favored architectural forms with clean lines and understated shapes, and they applied decoration that often incorporated square motifs. Black, white and gray were the predominant colors.  

Collectors prefer works that have an austere look, created during the early years of the Wiener Werkstätte, says Jane Kallir, author of Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstätte. By 1906, the workshop’s designs began to take on a more florid style expressed in sumptuous surface ornamentation, sinuous shapes, bold colors and playful figuration that reached a peak after World War I.

Still, collectors have been willing to make an exception for the whimsical, neo-Baroque creations of another Wiener Werkstätte luminary, Dagobert Peche, Kallir notes. A circa 1920 brass table lamp and an alpaca chandelier by Peche, which sold at Christie’s last December for $59,750 and $33,460, respectively, figured among the sale’s top lots. Kallir says the Peche phenomenon could ignite greater demand for the work of other designers active during the later Wiener Werkstätte period, such as ceramic artists Vally Wieselthier and Maria Likarz, who have been largely overlooked, although they designed in much the same style as Peche.    

WIENER WERKSTÄTTE  box.

Hoffmann and Moser produced some of their most progressive early designs in silver, brass and alpaca. Collectors can find these at established auction houses and dealers specializing in 20th-century decorative arts. (Unfortunately, the finest examples rarely appear on the market.) These objects range from simple hand-hammered silver-plated boxes and vessels to flatware, Gitterwerk baskets and vases, lighting fixtures and lavish silver tea services sometimes ornamented with ivory and semiprecious stones. Although Wiener Werkstätte silver creations often sell for prices in the five figures, small items, such as a silver Gitterwerk pill box designed by Hoffmann that sold for $6,573 at Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg last December, are often less costly, as are small non-silver objects, which may often be had for less than $5,000.

For those with a taste for wearable art, Wiener Werkstätte jewelry encompasses everything from opulent brooches—such as a diamond and gem-set silver and gold piece designed by Hoffmann that sold for $292,000 at Christie’s four years ago—to silver cuff bracelets that have sold for up to $29,900 at the auction house Doyle New York, as well as enameled pins that range in price from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

Furniture also has attracted sophisticated buyers’ attention. “Collectors will pay a premium for the best furniture by Hoffmann and Moser—whether a table, chair, bench or sitting group,” says Michelle Bucheit-Miller of Chicago’s Rita Bucheit gallery. “Demand for these pieces has been increasing. Moser’s chairs, for example, which display such a stark geometry, were super-modern for their time. A single Moser chair in a room stands out like a piece of sculpture.”

LAQUERED BENTWOOD seven-ball side chairs, designed by Wiener Werkstätte cofounder Josef Hoffmann

A circa 1901 painted beech and cane armchair designed by Moser for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium sold for $548,137 at Christie’s London in 2000, one of the highest prices ever paid for early 20th century Viennese design. Iconic bentwood designs representing the purest expressions of a designer’s aesthetic, such as Hoffmann’s streamlined, stained-beech Sitzmachine chair, can fetch thousands at auction—indeed one sold at Sotheby’s in December for $10,200. Coffeehouse tables and chairs by some of the workshop’s lesser-known designers can be had for under $5,000.

Collectors also are discovering the distinctive beauty of Viennese glassware by Hoffmann, Moser, Peche, Otto Prutscher and other Wiener Werkstätte designers who produced a range of objects in a range of styles. These pieces encompassed iridescent Art Nouveau-inspired vases, spare, streamlined bowls and boxes, and cut-glass table services, as well as etched and overlaid cameo goblets whose repeating geometric patterns were designed in collaboration with such noted Bohemian glasshouses as Loetz, Meyr’s Neff and Moser of Karlsbad.

These fragile creations, which can be purchased for $1,000 to $50,000, depending upon the designer and their rarity and importance, are still undervalued for their quality craftsmanship and innovative designs, according to New York dealer Barry Friedman. 

Graphic Depictions
Graphic design constitutes yet another collectible category from this period and comprises posters and decorative prints by a variety of Wiener Werkstätte designers, including Moser, Loffler, Peche and Otto Czeschka, and Vienna Secession artists Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Alfred Roller. (The Secession was a circle of avant-garde Viennese artists, architects and designers who seceded from the establishment’s Vienna House of Artists.) Top quality posters affiliated with the Secession movement, which primarily advertised its influential art exhibitions, are rare on the market, as are posters advertising Wiener Werkstätte products.

A WHITE-PAINTED Gitterwerk jardiniere by Josef Hoffmann

“Posters are highly sought after when they come up,” says New York dealer Mark J. Weinbaum. “Collectors appreciate their imaginative designs which, like other graphics of the period, combine figurative and abstract motifs in a distinctive aesthetic inspired by Art Nouveau and modernist styles.” The stylization of the lettering, which reflects this aesthetic, also appeals to collectors. Because they are rare and bear historical significance, the posters sell for about $50,000 to $100,000. Other collectibles are less expensive, such as the lithographs (available from $1,000) depicting fabric and wallpaper designs by Moser, Czeschka and others published in Die Quelle (The Source), a prominent design portfolio of the period. Individual issues of Ver Sacrum (Sacred Word), the monthly Secession publication produced from 1898 to 1903, boasting decorative woodcuts by designers of the period, sell from $250 to more than $1,000 an issue.

“The Wiener Werkstätte was far ahead of its time in promoting the aesthetic value of objects as part of a total work of art concept,” says Kallir. “Like many designers today, from Ralph Lauren to Donna Karan, Wiener Werkstätte designers knew that the total work of art is us and our lives.” 

Additional Information
Assessing Acquisitions
Wiener Werkstätte Designers

DISPLAYS

Neue Galerie New York
1048 Fifth Ave., New York
212.628.2200
www.neuegalerie.org

The Krolinsky Collection
Palais Breuner
Singerstrasse 16, Vienna
+43.1.513.2912
www.karolinsky.com

American Bar (Loosbar)
Kärntner Durchgang, Vienna

Dorotheum
Dorotheergase 17, Vienna
+43.1.515.60.200
www.dorotheum.com

RESOURCES

Denis Gallion
Historical Design
212.593.4528
www.historicaldesign.com

Jane Kallir
Galerie St. Etienne
212.245.6734
www.gseart.com

Michelle Bucheit-Miller
Rita Bucheit Ltd.
312.527.4080
www.ritabucheit.com

Barry Friedman Ltd.
212.794.8950
www.barryfriedmanltd.com

Doyle New York
212.427.2730
www.doylenewyork.com