dressing table

• Schminktisch (given title)

• furniture and woodwork collection

• design: Josef Frank, Vienna, about 1928
• execution: Anonym, Vienna, about 1928

• Interwar period,
• Modern,

• Fashion

• Mahagoniholz,
• massiv und furniert; Messing,
• vernickelt; weißes Alabasterglas; Spiegelglas,

• height: 134 cm
• width: 105 cm
• depth: 57 cm

• H 2280

• purchase, 1974

• Furniture and Woodwork Collection

This dressing table is another clear example of how Josef Frank opposed the standardization of utilitarian objects and instead advocated pragmatic designs adapted to the needs of the users. In producing this piece of mahogany furniture, with its tabletop of white alabaster glass and mirror framed in nickel-plated brass, the architect and designer gave priority to quality workmanship without harboring any grand ambitions in terms of representation, innovation or “design-for-design’s-sake”: Frank refrained from subjecting his furniture to formalist concepts, preferring to put it in the service of comfort; he aimed to provide the sort of unadorned, unpretentious utility that would support an independently free, enlightened bourgeois culture of home living and lifestyle beyond stylistic dogmas and conventions of fashion. (Hackenschmidt, Sebastian)

ausgestellt

• dressing table, Schminktisch, Josef Frank, MAK Inv.nr. H 2280

• https://mak-wp.711.at/en/collect/schminktisch_185659

• 06.12.2024