18.4.2012—1.7.2012
MAK Works on Paper Room
The MAK is home to the entire body of graphic work from the Danhauser Furniture Factory, and with a total of over 2,500 sketches, drawings, and catalogues, the museum can also boast the most important collection worldwide of furniture-related drawings from the Viennese Biedermeier era. These works on paper are of inestimable value for our knowledge of how furniture developed in the early 19th century.

The company which Joseph Ulrich Danhauser (1780–1829) founded in 1804 for the production of sculpted items plated in gold, sliver, and bronze received an “Imperial Royal State Factory Privilege” in 1808 to make lighting elements and items for the decoration of furniture. Shortly thereafter, Danhauser obtained a similar privilege for the production of “furniture of all kinds,” which allowed him to focus exclusively on the broad field of interior decorating from 1814 onward. Following his death, the factory was taken over by his son Josef Franz Danhauser (1805– 1845). As Vienna’s first major furniture business, it was to leave a lasting mark on Austrian homes and official residences.

The drawings from the father’s workshop adhere completely to the tradition of academic-style drawings done by craftsmen, while the younger Danhauser’s designs received a new impetus from the latter’s profession as a fine artist and painter. To this day, the unexcelled aesthetics and nearly infinite formal richness of these drawings make them quite fascinating to look at. The 1830s saw Josef Franz Danhauser mount an unprecedented, trend-setting advertising campaign featuring a series of interiors. These complete interior designs were reproduced as steel engravings and distributed as a supplement to the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode [Viennese Journal of Art, Literature, Theater and Fashion]. In doing so, Danhauser Jr. became the first to succeed in pres enting entire ensembles of furniture to a broad public in an aesthetically sophisticated way, thereby optimally marketing his range of products. Parallel to this exhibition’s opening, all of these works—which have now been researched and digitized—will be published online at sammlungen.MAK.at in a presentation that is of interest not just to scholars and art dealers, but also to furniture connoisseurs in general. Unfortunately, only a few original pieces of furniture from the Danhauser Factory still exist today. But some of the most important and valuable items are on display at the MAK Permanent Collection, the MAK’s Geymüllerschlössel branch, and— as permanent loan from the MAK—at the Albertina.

Curator Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel, head of the MAK Library and Works on Paper Collection
Assistand Curator Julian Möhwald, MAK Library and Works on Paper Collection

In the MAK Works on Paper Room, the extensive inventory of the library and Works on Paper Collection will be showcased highlighting different aspects in a series of exhibitions. The themes from recent years prove the diversity of the program arising in turn from the complexity of the collection: from contemporary graphic design, posters, artists' books, and architectural projects to ornamental prints and color wood cuts. The theme for 2010, "Approaches to Red Vienna", offers insight into two different aspects of graphic design.