Gustav Siegel / J. & J. Kohn

Bent beechwood and plywood, stained and polished, surface repolished, brass cuffs and fittings polished and stove enamelled, cut and facetted glass.

CABINET

designed by: Gustav Siegel attr., Vienna, 1901
executed by: J. & J. Kohn, Vienna, model no. 307/1

The cabinet was first exhibited as part of a dining room at the 1901/02 winter exhibition of the Austrian Museum of Arts and Industry. Since a lead glass window for the room the cabinet was presented in had been designed by Koloman Moser, the design of the complete dining room furniture was also attributed to Moser at the time.
The furniture is of great elegance, and Gustav Siegel was a gifted student of Wagner's. As architect for J. & J. Kohn, Siegel not only accomplished wonderful things in early-20th-century furniture making but remained active far into the century.

Although this cabinet has been documented in several sales catalogues, our piece is the only existing one I know of, apart from the one shown at the 1901/02 winter exhibition. However, the construction of the bottom is different: our cabinet has side panels mounted onto the bottom and disc-shaped legs, while the lateral panels and the bottom are made of one piece of bent wood with ball-shaped legs in the cabinet shown at the winter exhibition.