Rare Toilet Table

In the case of the toilet table, it appears to be the only furniture from the bathroom set designed by Otto Wagner known to have been preserved to date. This was shown in the Jubilee Exhibition in the Rotunde in Vienna’s Prater in 1898 by the ‘k.u.k. Hof-Tapezierer Schenzel & Sohn’ (imperial and royal decorator Schenzel & Son). Considering the background of when it was created, the dressing table is a spectacular piece of furniture and part of an extraordinary décor conception. In his design of his toilet table, Wagner took his bearings from forms of décor found in the aristocratic world. He reduced the usual all-over textile covering, thereby revealing the previously concealed metal base construction. The table is an allusion to the Japanese-inspired bamboo furniture so popular in England.1 At the same time, the functionality so vehemently demanded by Wagner was accounted for by the base construction made of metal tubes. The dressing table was evidence in its new type of design of the new level of hygiene found among the well-off section of the population in the late 19th century. This can readily be observed in the body of the toilet table, where Wagner put in smooth, varnished wooden surfaces that were easy to clean. He also adopted the typical use of marble as a storage surface suitable for furniture that comes into contact with moisture.2
Overall, it must be said that the furniture is important, both artistically and in terms of architectural theory, on account of its value for the architect personally, as well as in his work and in relation to his theories on art, hygiene and living. As the last presently known preserved piece of bathroom furniture, one moreover that was conceived for the wider public, it is extraordinarily relevant to the architect’s work. Indeed, Wagner drew on it time and again in specialist magazines and his own publications, and as a prototype for later furniture.3
1 Otto Wagner, Tagebuch 1915-1918, zit. Nach: Andreas Nierhaus; Alfred Pfoser (Hg.),
Meine angebetete Louise! Otto Wagner. Das Tagebuch des Architekten 1915–1918,
Salzburg-Wien 2019, p. 25
2 cf. Alfred Angerer, Hygieia verführte Otto Wagner. Beispiele einer hygienisch motivierten Moderne.
(MA Technische Universität Graz), Graz 2015, p. 68 f., fig. 25
3 Daniel Resch in: „Der Toilettetisch Otto Wagners aus seinem „Absteigquartier“ – Ein Prototyp
modernen Möbeldesgin“, in: „ÖZKD“ (LXXVI, Heft 1), Wien 2022