Product Description
Hector Aguilar “Spheres and Scroll” bracelet, sterling, signed, c. 1940’s
Hector Aguilar “Spheres and Scroll” bracelet, sterling, signed, c. 1940’s
GUSTAV GURSCHNER (1873-1970) Austria
Vase c. 1905
Cast bronze ovoid shaped vase with decorative Celtic motif, lightly gilded, the body of the vase simulating leather with a rich brown patina
Signed: GURSCHNER, M180 (stamped in the bronze)
Related works illustrated: The Studio, Special Summer Number 1906: The Art Revival in Austria, ill. no. D6; Studio Yearbook (London, 1909), pp. 139-140; Vienna Turn of the Century: Art and Design, Fischer Fine Art, exhib. cat. (London 1979), p. 23, illus. 1; Bronzes, sculptors & Founders, H. Berman, (Atglen 1994 III) p. 781, cat. nos. 2893, 2894; Decorative Art 1880-1980, Dan Klein & Margaret Bishop (Oxford, England: Phaidon and Christie’s Limited, 1986) p. 84, illus. 1
H: 7 1/4″ x D: 7″ x D: 4″
Price: $14,500
Gustav Gurschner was born in Tirol, Austria. He attended the Fachschule für Holzindustrie in Bozen from 1885-1888. After three years, his instructors encouraged him to attend the Austrian Museum for Applied Arts’ Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna. After finishing his formal training, Gurschner pursued a career as a sculptor of monumental works. It was while he was in Paris in 1897, that he first turned his energies from the application of small-scale, sculptural works to the aesthetic design of household objects. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Vienna to join the Secessionists whose ideals he shared. By the turn-of-the-century, Gurschner was not only one of the better known artists working in Vienna but enjoyed a reputation that extended into other European countries as well.
EDWARD WELBY PUGIN (1834 – 1875) UK
“Granville” chair c. 1870
Walnut, klismos-style A-frame back with exposed pegs, shaped seat and base with exposed mortise and tenon joinery.
Illustrated: Victorian and Edwardian Decor: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, Jeremy Cooper (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987) fig. 117; Nineteenth Century Design: from Pugin to Mackintosh, Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993) p.143, pl. 173 (in oak); Catalogue Sommaire Illustré des Art Décoratifs, Musée d’Orsay (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1988), p. 184; Truth, Beauty and Design. Victorian, Edwardian and later decorative art, exhibit. cat. (Fisher Fine Art Limited, London, 1986.) p. 32, No. 50
A “Granville” chair is in both the Permanent Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Musée D’Orsay, Paris.
H: 33″ x D: 18 1/2″ x W: 18″
Edward Welby Pugin, son of gothic-revivalist A.W.N. Pugin, was thrust into professional and family responsibilities upon his father’s death in 1852 when the young Pugin was only eighteen years of age. His style closely resembled his father’s although his furniture for the Granville Hotel in Ramsgate (1873) had its own robust individuality. Like his father, he designed both church and domestic furnishings, mostly executed by Hardman & Co. of Birmingham, the firm established by his father’s collaborator John Hardman. During his lifetime E.W. Pugin was regarded as the leading Catholic church architect of the High Victorian period, in fact he left for New York in 1873 and set up an office on Fifth Avenue and received commissions for some 30 churches across the U.S., including Chicago and Washington, D.C.