Lot Essay
This eyecatching writing table, with carefully chosen cuts of richly figured cherrywood, derives from a design by the celebrated Viennese cabinet maker Josef Danhauser (1780-1829). Danhauser, who established a factory in Vienna in 1804, and by 1808 was employing over 100 workers, was one of the most prolific and influential designers of the period. He published over 2,500 drawings of factory designs (now stored at the Österreiches Museum für Angewandte Kunst) which exemplify the functional purity of the Biedermeier style. His customers, who were mainly furnishing middle class homes, but included Archduke Karl and Duke Albert von Sachsen-Techsen and Archduchess Sophie, mother of the future Emperor Franz Josef I, could order furniture directly from his catalogue in the latest Viennese fashion.