Armchair - part of the so called 'Fairy tale' suite

Although Ede Torockai Wigand (1869-1945) originally trained to be a decorative painter, his unquenchable thirst for knowledge led him to try his hand at the most diverse fields of art. It was as a furniture designer, however, that he reaped the highest rewards. His early pieces were inspired by international Art Nouveau, as well as the Arts and Crafts movement from England. Later, he acquired a taste for the forms and decorative motifs of Hungarian folk art, and increasingly turned his attention to the world of fables and fairytales. He spent several years in Transylvania, especially in the part called Székely Land, studying the characteristic features of the local folk-art traditions. His interests and his imagination led to the creation of this rustic set of furniture, which combines traditional Székely carpentry structures with carved figures from folk tales. He designed these pieces for his own home, and a picture of them was included in the book he published in 1916, titled The Decorative Courtyard [Hímes udvar].