587 - Viennese ball favour, folding screen leporello in leather binding, August Klein, Concordia Ball 1903

Viennese ball favour, folding screen leporello in leather binding, August Klein, Concordia Ball 1903 Ball favour in the form of a multi-part folding screen, made of curved card panels which unfold into a free-standing screen. The binding of brown leather with ornamental gold tooling: on the front a laurel wreath with bow and the inscription 16. FEBER, at the lower edge AUGUST KLEIN, on the back a printed genre scene with a couple in a gold cartouche and beneath it the year 1903. Closure by a brown fabric ribbon with bow and metal button. The panels with red strapwork decor, each with an oval portrait photograph of a woman writer, beneath it a printed motto and the facsimile signature; legible are among others Bertha von Suttner, Gabriele Reuter, Ellen Key, Marie von Najmájer, Hermione von Preuschen, Anna Ritter, Ernst Rosmer, Adalbert Meinhardt, Mathilde Gräfin Stubenberg, Helene von Montbart (Hans von Kahlenberg), Ilse Frapan-Akuman, M. E. delle Grazie and Fannie Groeger. The last panel bears a printed dance programme with numbered dances. The leather rubbed and stained, the panels browned. 12.5x5.5x1.5 cm. A ball favour is the gift distributed to the ladies by the organiser of a Viennese ball. Developed from the simple dance card, it had its heyday between 1880 and 1914 and became a decorative art genre in its own right. The most important Viennese producer was the house of August Klein at Graben 20, imperial and royal purveyor of leather, fancy and bronze goods with branches in Paris and London. The ball of the journalists' and writers' association Concordia was held in the Sofiensäle from 1863 and was one of the social highlights of the season. The favour of 1903 was regarded as a novelty of its kind: it assembled contributions by outstanding women writers in word and image, the medallion portraits were supplied by the studio of the Viennese court photographer J. Löwy, and the free-standing screen was intended to grace every lady's writing desk. The embossed date 16 February remained although the ball fell into the period of mourning after the death of Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska and was postponed to 23 March 1903.