Furniture design - three sculpture stands

Together with Cat. Nos. 9.248 and 9.249 these sketches were probably pages in a merchandise catalogue, as suggested by the inscription and shape of the stamps and the uniform holes for folding on the top part of the drawings. The colourful, picturesque furniture drawings seem to be elegant at first, but after looking at them for a longer time the lack of graphic professionalism is apparent at the more complicated junctures of the structures. This supports the hypothesis that these are not pictures of real carpentry but sketches. Arthúr Barta participated first at the 1903 Christmas exhibition, with the historicizing furniture of an Empire lady's drawing room, as proven by the photo. On the other hand, the statue stands already show that their designer was familiar with both the British Applied Arts and the trends of Gödöllő. The geometrical structure, the pierced decoration as well as the reserved ornaments radiate the different, fashionable tendencies in contemporary decorative arts, including the statue stands of Ede Wigand. This is also proved by the pattern collection (see MLT 2315-2321, 2519 and 4.424-5268) that was transferred by the Archives from the library of the Museum of Applied Arts. This pattern collection contained, among others, typical turn-of-the-century interior pictures cut from magazines, especially illustrations of English and Scottish works of art.