Koloman Moser's salon cabinet, manufactured 
by J. & J. Kohn, was first presented at the 
Winter Exhibition of the Austrian Museum of 
Art and Industry in 1901/02: “It is the only 
piece of furniture in the company's sales pro 
gram that is clearly produced after a design by 
Moser.” 1 In terms of construction, this salon 
cabinet was based on an innovative System, 
according to which the company’s other bent- 
wood furniture which was shown in this ex- 
hibition was also manufactured: ‘‘Bent-wood 
frames were enclosed within bent-wood 
frames.” 2 However, in a Kohn Company adver- 
tisement in the magazine Hohe Warte from 
1905/06, Josef Hoffmann is named as the in- 
ventor of this new “system design.” Christian 
Witt-Dörring, in particular, has pointed to the 
resulting problems with attribution and the 
question of whether it might have been a col- 
laboration between Hoffmann and Moser. 3 This 
bentwood frame System, with its clear geomet- 
ric design vocabulary, is interesting, not least 
because with its use of framing as one of the 
leitmotifs, it seems to be characteristic of 
Viennese Modernism. The decorative cabinet 
by Thonet, which was designed just a few years 
later, is still completely rooted in the idea of the 
floral Art Nouveau style; it was presented in 
Thonet’s Zentral-Anzeiger No. 13 from 31 May 
1905 and offered in various versions in 
September of the same year in Supplement I 
of the 1904 catalog. This cabinet was one of 
the first pieces of Thonet furniture to be 
equipped with brass shoes; as a further con- 
cession to the modern design vocabulary of 
bentwood furniture, Gebrüder Thonet also used 
rectangular cross-sections. However, they 
avoided the tight bending radii, which evoked 
the impression of elegant modernity found in 
the Kohn frame System. 
1 Cf. Christian Witt-Dörring, “Koloman Moser - Ein Multitalent der 
Wiener Moderne," in: Exhib. Cat. Vienna/Basel 2018: Koloman 
Moser, 18-81,48. See also Kunst und Kunsthandwerk, 5th year, 
iss.1, 1902, 4. 
2 Christian Witt-Dörring, “Bent-wood production and the Viennese 
avant-garde: The Thonet and Kohn firms, 1899-1914" in: Derek 
Ostergard (ed,), Bent Wood and Metal Furniture 1850-1946, 
New York 1987, 95-120: 110. 
3 Cf. ibid., 108 ff. 
Zierschrank Nr, 3 Decorative Cabinet No. 3 
Entwurf Design: Gebrüder Thonet, 1905 
Ausführung Execution: Gebrüder Thonet, Koritschan 
Korycany, um ca. 1910; Buche, massiv und gebogen, 
Sperrholz, Glas, Messing Beech, solid and bent, 
plywood, glass, brass; Sammlung Collection Snoeckx