MAK Sammlungen

Top
Object name: working drawing, design
Title: 9 Working Drawings of the Execution of a Mosaic Frieze for the Dining Hall of Stoclet House in Brussels (given title)
Production:
design: Gustav Klimt, Kammer am Attersee, 1908 to 1911
design: Gustav Klimt, Vienna, 1908 to 1911

Material: paper, colored pencil, gold <metal>, pastel <crayon>, metal <material>, platinum, silver <metal>, bronze <material>
Technique: appliqué, Zeichnung, gouache
Measurements:
height: 200 cm
width: 730 cm

Inventory number: MAL 226
Acquisition: purchase (24/03/1961)
Description: Palais Stoclet (also known as the Stoclet House) in Brussels was planned between 1905 and 1911 by Josef Hoffmann in the style of the Vienna Secession and decorated by him and a great number of Wiener Werkstätte members, as well as others from that circle, in keeping with the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Not only the building and the interior design, but in fact the entire decorating scheme is permeated by a synthesis of the three arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, wholly in keeping with the spirit of the Wiener Werkstätte. For the interior decorating, the best-known artists of the period around 1900 were called upon—including Carl Otto Czeschka, Eduard Josef Wimmer- Wisgrill and Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel. The commission to do the dining room walls went to Gustav Klimt. Klimt’s years of work on this project produced nine cartoons at a scale of 1:1 that were then realized as mosaics. The motif of a sweeping tree of life on the long side of the room is mirrored on the opposite wall; the Dancer (Expectation) corresponds to the Lovers (Fulfillment) across from her. The front end of the room contains the abstract figure of the Knight. For these friezes’ execution by the Wiener Werkstätte and the Wiener Mosaikwerkstätte [Vienna Mosaic Workshop], Klimt handwrote on the cartoons instructions for Forstner according to which only the finest materials—such as enamel, mother-of-pearl and gold leaf—were to be used. This work is among the few that Klimt did at a monumental scale, and with its recourse to Egyptian, Byzantine, and Japanese models, it represents the climax of his artistically mature output. (Pokorny-Nagel, Kathrin)
Department: Library and Works on Paper Collection
See more:
MAK YouTube: Klimt's Magic Garden - 360°
MAK YouTube: KLIMT’S MAGIC GARDEN: A Virtual Reality Experience by Frederick Baker
MAK reflections: Der Grant In Den Kringeln
MAK reflections: Über Schmetterlinge
Wikipedia: Stoclet-Fries (de)
Wikipedia: Stoclet Frieze (en)
MAK Blog: Im MAK blüht der Lebensbaum: Eine Schulklasse lässt sich von Gustav Klimt inspirieren
MAK Blog: Made by Klimt, reloaded by the MAK: Ein Technologischer Blick auf die Entwurfszeichnungen für das Palais Stoclet
MAK Blog: KLIMT’S MAGIC GARDEN: Virtual Reality im MAK
MAK Blog: Partage Plus – Digitising and enabling Art Nouveau for Europeana

Article in MAK Design Shop:
Klimt Leporello
  • Image Zoom