Lot 701: LEOPOLD FORSTNER (1878-1936)

A Gilt and Colored Glass Mosaic, circa 1908
executed by the Wiener Mosaikwerkstätte, Vienna, in original iron frame
37 x 20 1/2 in. (94 x 52 cm.)

Exhibition catalogue, Vienna 1900-1930: Art in the Home, New York, Historical Design Inc., 1996, p. 6 for an illustration of this mosaic.

Private collection, New York. Reinhold Hofstätter, Vienna.
Forstner Family collection, Vienna.

Other mosaics by Forster can be found in the collections of the Neue Galerie, New York and the Österreiches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst (MAK), Vienna.

Leopold Forstner, a pupil of Koloman Moser's, was a painter and artisan who, in 1908, founded the Wiener Mosaikwerkstätte which was the first workshop in Vienna to be devoted to the art of mosaic. Forstner was a member of both the Wiener Werkstätte and the Österreichischer Werkbund and, while talented in many media such as drawing, watercolors and woodcuts, he was a truly gifted mosaicist. He executed a number of Gustav Klimt's designs, most notably the mosaic decoration in the dining room of the Palais Stoclet, Brussels (1911) which Klimt referred to as "probably the ultimate stage of my development of ornament." For the Palais Stoclet, Forstner also produced mosaics of his own design such as those in the music room and foyer. His own moasic designs can also be seen at, among numerous other locations in Vienna, Otto Wagner's Villa Wagner II (1913). Forster had previously worked with Wagner at his church of St. Leopold am Steinhof, Vienna (1907), executing the altar designs of Remigius Geyling.