Austro-Hungarian and Central European Furniture
from the 19th and the early 20th Century

Our offer focuses especially on two periods of cabinet making in Central Europe. The first nineteenth century style is "Biedermeier" covering the furniture production of the first part of the 19th century in Germany and Central Europe. This first Bourgeois furniture style par excellence combines beauty, grace and functionalism. Inspired by the greatest English furniture designers, but also heavily influenced by French empire, it came into fashion during the Napoleonic War. The pieces were designed for practical use and offer high comfort and a homely feeling of coziness. Elegant proportions, the moderate use of intarsia, or marquetry, and a preference for smooth surfaces and (apart from mahogany) the lighter colors of native European woods are the most typical characteristics of this style. Chests of drawers, special desks and tables and specially designed, exquisite pieces, such as sewing tables or music accessories are the most favored items of this furniture style.

The second period from the turn of the century on up to the late twenties is that of Art Nouveau (or Secession - szecesszio, Jugendstil and later the Art Deco). It represents a different taste in creating interiors among the middle class homes. These are the styles of daring experimenter artists, and the rich upper middle class who wanted to own individually styled pieces of unusual proportions, such as settees and bookcases. Some have mother of pearl inlays, and marquetry characterizes very often this highly sophisticated style at its best. Nevertheless, this period exhibits a very high quality craftsmanship and strong period flavor. The Viennese pieces, especially those produced by the Wiener Werkstaette, are highly prized collector's items with strong angular and cubistic forms, sometimes with geometric decoration. The Hungarian pieces have a tendency to use organic forms of carvings with floral patterns in the upholstery.

Hungarian Paintings from the late 19th and the early 20th Century

Hungarian painting was an organic part of European painting. All important stylistic trends of the nineteenth century as Biedermeier, Romanticism, Realism and Plain air landscape painting are represented. The important painters studied in Munich and in Paris, (e.g. Szekely Bertalan, Than Mor, Madarasz Viktor, Benczur Gyula, Szinnyei Merse Pal and Baron Laszlo Mednyanszky). Some, like Mihaly Munkacsy or Laszlo Paal, gained world fame and were even collected by the Vanderbilts and Wanamakers in the US. The pictures are of high technical quality. This quality characterizes the works of even the minor masters, such as A. Berkes, A. Neogrady, Gy. Norkoczy. Vivid and bright color compositions are typical of this national school, which had a preference for the internationally popular peasant genre. Sunny landscapes of the summer countryside, the "puszta" and the rolling wheat fields or meadows full with flowers are often represented.

Beginning with the turn of the century there was a rapid stylistic modernization and all versions of art nouveau, impressionism, post impressionism and expressionism came into fashion. The embarrassment of riches produced an artistic "Golden Age of Budapest" culture. Beside the great masters like Karoly Ferency, Istvan Csok, Bela Ivanyi Grunwald, Janos Vaszary, the master of Parisian elegance and sophistication Jozsef Rippl-Ronai painted masterpieces as sophisticated as the French masters. Some works in our collection were painted by the disciples of these masters (e.g A. Handmann, Janos Viski, Pal Friedl).The intensive artistic contacts with Paris stimulated diverse stylistic experiments. In particular the Hungarian students of Henry Matisse (Czobel, Perlott-Csaba) produced works on a very high artistic level, being at the same time genuinely modern and truly Hungarian in their preference for the warm color-scheme, which remains a permanent feature of this national school of painting. Even the minor masters working between the two World Wars were faithful representatives of this trend. The "Ecole de Budapest" of the twenties and late thirties is just being discovered by the developing art market and is an upcoming field for collectors.

Our Gallery specializes in selling pictures from Hungary, offering a broad stylistic range of the different styles, as well as promoting the ever popular trend of plain air realism and post impressionism.