DESIGNED BY PETER BEHRENS FOR THE DINING ROOM OF THE BEHRENS HOUSE, 1900-1901, MATHILDENHÖHE, DARMSTADT, MANUFACTURED BY THE HOFMÖBELFABRIK, J.D. HEYMANN, HAMBURG

This chair formed part of a white-lacquered dining suite presented at Behrens' house at the 1901 Exhibition 'A Document of German Art' at the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. In 1899, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse had invited seven artists to form an artists' colony at the Mathildenhöhe and Behrens designed and furnished a private residence for the project, the Villa Behrens. A visitor to Behrens house described the effect of the dining room '....the whole chamber is in a sparkling white, intensified by an extremely delicate combination with silver. In a few, rare places, such as the cushions of the chairs, some of the wallpaper and the bases of the stemmed glasses, a contrasting deep bluish red appears, which highlights the silvery white even further. Apart from this, amidst all the different lines of the ceiling and the crockery cupboards......in a hundred different places, the eye meets with the same motif, but it is an eternal theme with endless variations'.

Cf: Alexander Koch, Die Ausstellung der Darmstädter Knstler-Kolonie, Darmstadt, 1901, pp. 346-347
Die Kunst, Vol. VI, October 1902, p. 18
Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Vol. IX, 1902, p. 148-149, ill. p. 167-169
Herman Muthesius: Das Moderne Landhaus und seine innere Ausstattung, Munich, 1904, p. 36
Peter Behrens und Nrnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 1980, Exh. Cat., p. 104, ill. 16
Renate Ulmer, Museum Knstler-Kolonie, Darmstadt, 1990, p. 6, No. 2