Biedermeier furniture: collectors attracted to the modernity and fine craftsmanship of the best Biedermeier pieces will find that prices are temptingly modest

Apollo, March, 2008 by Claudia Herstatt

Between 1815 and 1848 German-speaking Europe developed a new style of living. Self-consciously middle class, it deliberately distanced itself from the affectations of court life, in favour of a new focus on simplicity. Named Biedermeier after a fictional petit-bourgeois German invented by the writer Ludwig Eichrodt, this trend was mirrored in an unostentatious, functional approach to decoration and furniture design.

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'With its clear-cut, straight-line structures, Biedermeier furniture has a conception of form of a kind that is familiar to us from the Bauhaus and in today's functional furniture', writes Heidrun Zinnkann in the catalogue of the recent exhibition 'Biedermeier Furniture in Europe' at the Museum fur Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt. 'The stylistic elements of Biedermeier can definitely be described as radically modern for the time,' says Georg Britsch Junior, an art dealer based in Bad Schussenried who specialises in Biedermeier, 'which is why even younger collectors are showing enthusiasm for it.' It is not just the spare simplicity and elegance of the forms that appeal; design in this period also stands out for sophistication of craftsmanship.

As an example, Britsch points to a globe-shaped sexing table, made around 1820 in Vienna from mahogany, yew and bird's-eye maple veneered on pine (Fig. 1), which he acquired from a collector. The body, in the shape of a globe with inlaid planetary symbols and signs of the zodiac around an equator, conceals a small but elaborate built-in sewing workbox consisting of compartments opened by snap mechanisms. The body is supported by three tall, delicate, inwardly curved legs with Atlas heads. In good condition and with almost original patina, it is valued at 85,000 [euro].

Although it began as a middle-class style, Biedermeier became sufficiently fashionable to be chosen for aristocratic and even royal residences. For example, Maximilian I of Bavaria (1756-1825), in a spirit of enlightenment and modesty, had his private apartments in the Munich Residenz furnished in Biedermeier style. When it fell from fashion, the furniture was used in government offices. It was not until about 20 years ago that Biedermeier began to attract attention from collectors, thanks in part to exhibitions at the Munchner Stadtmuseum under its director the Biedermeier expert Hans Ottomeyer.

Recent exhibitions have helped to revive this interest. As well as the Frankfurt show there was 'Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity', which opened in Milwaukee in September 2006 (reviewed in APOLLO, June 2007) and toured to Vienna, Berlin and Paris, attracting some half a million visitors. This revival amuses longstanding enthusiasts, such as the Munich art dealer Axel Schlapka. 'I started to become interested in Biedermeier in the 1970s,' he says, 'actually far too soon for contemporary taste.' He was then just 24 years old, the same age that his youngest collectors are today. 'When I set up a stand entirely of Biedermeier at the Munich Art Fair in 1983, I was regarded as a curiosity,' he remembers.

In 1985 Schlapka sold a large suite of drawing-room furniture made for the personal physician of King Ludwig I of Bavaria (Fig. 3). Recently he was able to buy the set back for another collector: 'It was bought by an Indonesian in Jakarta, who had studied in Germany and lived there for 15 years', Schlapka recalls. 'During that time he had learned to appreciate Biedermeier.'

However, most collectors are based in the area where Biedermeier originated, from Hungary via Vienna to Berlin, Thuringia, Saxony and Denmark. There is also interest among collectors in America. Among them, says Thomas Schmitz-Avila, a dealer in Bad Breisig, is an American art dealer who deals mainly in paintings by Gerhard Richter. 'He is attracted by the clear shapes and he is mad about the oddest things'.

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As in most areas of the market, and particularly furniture, collectors want outstanding works and, according to Schmitz-Avila, 'are always on the look-out for something out of the ordinary'. Nonetheless, when he found just such a rarity, a 19-metre-long bookcase made in Munich between 1815 and 1820, its purchaser, Deutsche Bank, bought only a portion of it.

Biedermeier is not expensive. Thomas Schmitz-Avila's American client could easily acquire a whole set of excellent furniture from the period for the price of a single picture by Gerhard Richter. For example, an exquisite Viennese hall cabinet (Fig. 2) was offered for sale at at the Nagel auction house in Stuttgart in December 2007, when for the first time in many years a single-owner Biedermeier collection came up for auction. It had been formed by the mathematician Georg Weippert, who had acquired around a hundred objects since the 1970s. However, the cabinet, with a relatively high estimate for this market of 50,000 [euro], did not find any takers.

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As always, a good provenance makes an important difference. Christie's sale in Amsterdam on 1 April of property from the House of Liechtenstein includes items from the Biedermeier period, including, for example, a five-metre-wide etagere made in Vienna around 1820. 'Whereas prices for baroque furniture have practically hit rock bottom,' says Stefan Dobner, manager of the furniture department at Christie's in Amsterdam, 'those for Biedermeier are still relatively stable--assuming that we are talking about top-quality pieces.' Nonetheless, he does not think the price of around 270,000 [euro] that Christie's achieved a few years ago for a Biedermeier chest of drawers is ever likely to be repeated.