Lot Essay
The invention of this shape of desk may be credited to Josef Danhauser (d.1829), as a related pattern survives amongst the archives of his Viennese manufactory. His firm was granted a permit to manufacture all types of furniture in 1814 (A. Wilkie, Biedermeier, New York, 1987, fig. 85). A similar cherry-veneered table, with leather-lined top, and one other with walnut-veneer, now in the Austrian Decorative Arts Museum, Vienna, are also illustrated by Wilkie (figs. 87 and 86). The latter was commissioned about 1825 by the Archduchess Sophie for her appartment at Laxenburg, near Vienna. Related tables also survive in the Art Musuem, Prague, and the Nationalmuseum, Budapest ('Bürgersinn und Aufbegehren', Vienna, 1987, cat. no. 8/36').