Victorian Furniture - The Biedermeier Style 2

Danhauser was not a native of Austria, having left Wurttemburg where he had trained as a sculptor at the beginning of the century. When he arrived in Vienna, he at first made carved ornaments for handmade furniture but by 1804 he had opened his Etablissement fur alle Gegensyande des Ameublements (Establishment for all Furnishing Requirements), and by 1808 he was employing 130 workmen, the largest number up to that date within the Austrian Empire. Everything he sold was made to his own designs and over 2,500 of these still exist, all of which exhibit the essential ingredients of Biedermeier, on which he was such a seminal influence.

In its outlook, the style has much in common with the Bauhaus philosophy; truth to materials and functionalism were of major importance to the Biedermeier designers. This wood, being the most significant element, was used in smooth flat sheets, and as architectural details lost their importance, they were replaced by shallow applied strips. No attempt was made to hide constructional methods, and on chairs for example, the joints of seat rails and legs are clearly displayed. The shaped used were invariably simple and geometrical and intended almost to be viewed only in two dimensions. Thus, curves were almost never serpentine or bombe, but rather curves within a single plane. Being geometric, the designs are derived from the square or the circle, extended logically in the third dimension  as the cube or the sphere. These were, even more than in earlier periods the essentials of design, in that their line was normally pure and uncluttered by surface decoration. They were, of course, often linked together, most frequently by the use of concave curves.

One of the most unusual results of this simple geometric approach is a writing bureau, to be seen at the Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Dresden, which consists of a cubic two drawer base, on which stands the bureau section made up of three elements, the first of which is a rectangle with a height to width ratio of 2:1. Within this rectangle is a square which opens to reveal the writing surface. Described around this square and there in part falling outside the limits of the rectangle is a circle, the circumference of which is defined by an applied band of contrasting veneer. Surmounting this section is a smaller cube, linked to the base by concave curves. Borrowed from the classical are its decorative metalwork elements: lion's paw feet and winged griffins supporting the circle.

In its 'truth to materials', decoration was minimal, for it was the grain of the wood that was the most important element in the successful execution of Beidermeier design. Partly as a conscious rejection of the Empire and partly for economic reasons, mahogany fell into disuse and was replaced by walnut, pear and cherry, all of which were indigenous, although towards the end of the 1820s mahogany began to return to fashion.

The style, although peculiar to the Germanic states, was not without external influences, of which the most important were the Neoclassical style and English fitted and non fitted furniture design. Many of the Neoclassical motifs were used, such as the lyre, lions' paw feet and sphinx heads, while certain pieces designed by Sheraton found their was, barely changed, into the German design books. This glance towards England was an acknowledgement of her role in the overthrow of Napoleon as well as a deliberate disregard of the French Empire and Restoration styles.  

To be continued tomorrow...