Drawing-room table Graf Kessler
Design 1902/03 (Cat. rais. 1333)
This design goes back to the Weimar commission to design furnishings and appointments for Harry, Count Kessler, which Henry van de Velde received late in 1901, when Kessler had arranged for the artist to advise the young Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst. Kessler himself strove for a responsible position in the cultural life of the Grand Duchy, succeeding van de Velde as honorary director of the Museum für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe in 1903. Count Kessler’s new house in Weimar, on the other hand, had been remodelled and redecorated by 1902.
After van de Velde’s businesses in both Brussels and Berlin failed and the exclusive contract he had later concluded with the Berlin ‘Hohenzollern Kunstgewerbehaus’ was terminated, Kessler took over the role of intermediary and impresario for the Belgian and his work. The two planned a new era of modern art and culture in the classical city of Weimar, to be helped by the prominence throughout Europe of the Nietzsche Archives. To promote this ambitious undertaking within the framework of the New Weimar, its two leading exponents needed to live in surroundings that set an example by reflecting Henry van de Velde’s New Style creed. The artist, therefore, took particular care in executing the commission from Kessler. The Count himself paralleled these efforts by acquiring a large number of contemporary art works for his fabulous collection.
The furnishings of the first (1897/98) Kessler apartments to be designed and decorated by van de Velde, those in Berlin, were already of superb quality, with luxuriant forms and superlatively finished. This high quality was sustained at Weimar; an array of the Weimar designs set the standard for commissions received by the artist in the years that followed. Since most of the furnishings were lost following Kessler’s emigration in 1933, we are, unfortunately, left only with photographs and identical pieces from other interiors.
This elegant and graceful drawing-room table was also made in a round variant. The models were available on order in various hardwoods such as mahogany, walnut and ebony. A few exemplars have survived in private collections and museums (the Münchhausen interior: Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar; the Schede interior: Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt am Main).
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Foyer in Count Kessler's house in Weimar, 1905 |
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