2317 - JOSEF HOFFMANN & KOLOMAN MOSER "Two Armchairs and a Table, Purkersdorf Model" 1980s, designed in 1904. Manufactured by Wittmann, Austria. White-lacquered wood, elastic straps, and fabric. Chairs: 86 x 60.5 x 62.5 cm. Table: 72 x 70 x 70 cm. All pieces marked with a plaque on the underside. Signs of age, minor scratches. In 1904, the Wiener Werkstätte, founded by Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, and Fritz Waerndorfer, received what was arguably its most prominent major commission—the interior design of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium. Industrialist Viktor Zuckerkandl had commissioned Hoffmann to design a building “somewhere between a modern hotel and a modern sanatorium,” which would soon become a gathering place for Viennese society. Committed to the idea of a total work of art, the furnishings were designed to complement the simple elegance of the architecture. Koloman Moser’s cubic armchair, with white-lacquered vertical struts and a checkerboard-patterned seat made of wicker, had originally been designed for the Klimt exhibition at the Vienna Secession in 1903, but ultimately became the central piece of seating in the sanatorium’s entrance hall. Today, the minimalist “Purkersdorf Armchair,” which seeks to engage in dialogue with Hoffmann’s unadorned architecture, ranks among the design icons of Viennese Modernism. NOT SUITABLE FOR SHIPPING—PICKUP ONLY!