DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art announced the acquisition of a masterpiece for its acclaimed decorative arts and design collection, a solid silver vitrine, or display cabinet, made by the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), a collaborative group of artists, architects and designers founded in 1903. Standing over five feet tall, this vitrine was originally owned by the Wittgenstein family of Vienna and is the largest and most lavish example known of the silverwork of the Wiener Werkstätte. A triumph of early 20th-century design, it is made of silver encrusted with enamel, pearls, opal and other gemstones. The piece was intended to be as much a work of art as any precious object that could be placed within it. The Museum acquired the cabinet earlier this month from a private collection, and it is currently on view in the European galleries on Level 2.

“We are pleased to bring such an exquisite work of international importance into the Dallas Museum of Art’s collection,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, the Museum’s Eugene McDermott Director. “The vitrine represents a significant moment in European design, and contributes to the understanding of the evolution of design aesthetics in the 20th century. We know our community will enjoy experiencing the masterwork both for its importance and beauty.”

Kevin W. Tucker, The Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art, remarked, “Few, if any, objects so effectively convey the exuberant spirit of progressive Viennese design in the first decade of the 20th century as does this unique masterpiece. The cabinet and its ornamentation resonate with the tensions between the Werkstätte’s progressive aesthetic, historicism and the opulent materials that they favored, eloquently questioning the evolving definition of modernity and the very future of design in Europe and beyond.”

Designed by Werkstätte member Carl Otto Czeschka (1878-1960) and presented as the centerpiece of a gallery dedicated to their work at the 1908 Vienna Kunstschau (Art Show), this vitrine reflects a move from the rectilinear forms previously favored by Werkstätte co-founder Josef Hoffmann to an ornamental aesthetic characteristic of the work of Czeschka. The use of opulent materials and particular stylized ornamentation—including a pair of regal caryatid figures supporting the onyx top and a variety of leaves, birds and squirrels that decorate the case—reflects both Czeschka’s prior work and the inspiration of modern Viennese paintings by artists such as Gustav Klimt, an associate of Czeschka whose paintings were prominently featured in the 1908 exhibition.

Czeschka was equally successful in the graphic arts and sculptural work, subsequently producing the book Die Nibelungen (1909) and interior designs for the Caberet Fledermaus and the Werkstätte’s most important architectural commission, a palatial house (c. 1905–11) in Brussels for banker Adolphe Stoclet.

This vitrine was purchased at the 1908 exhibition by Karl Wittgenstein (1847–1913), a Viennese iron and steel magnate and the leader of one of the most powerful families in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Wittgenstein’s family engaged in a series of artistic and architectural commissions in the following years, including paintings by Klimt and the remodeling and furnishing of a number of their homes by the Werkstätte. The vitrine, originally installed in the family’s palace in Vienna, remained in the Wittgenstein family’s possession until 1949, when it was sold at auction and entered another private collection.

In celebration of this unique acquisition, the Museum anticipates receiving a gift of multiple works on paper and design objects from Dr. Alessandra Comini, a leading scholar of turn-of-the-century Viennese culture and the University Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University. These Austrian Secessionist works include a self-portrait by Koloman Moser, currently featured in the touring exhibition, Koloman Moser: Designing Modern Vienna, 1897–1907, co-organized by the Neue Galerie New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.