Original graphite drawing and print of furniture design for Gebrüder-Schurmann

Graphite drawing on translucent paper vellum, 12 x 14 inches. A remarkable drawing at 1:10 scale and the technical plate (13.75 x 12.5 inches) featuring a variation on the design for a teak living room cabinet. It looks like the original design calls for two sliding glass panels and the published design has three solid doors with exposed shelving. Both items have creases from being folded into quarters and the original drawing is particularly fragile along the folds but remains in Very Good condition. 

No date, presumed ca. 1930 (The text dated 1876 relates to a copyright restriction, not the furniture). Designed in a Danish Modern style that developed from Arts & Crafts/Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk. "Gebrüder-Schurmann was a German furniture manufacturer. In 1931, they organized an exhibition of modern interiors that featured Fritz August Breuhaud de Groot, Marcel Breuer, Hans Hartl, Michael Rachlis, Le Corbusier, Ernst Lichtblau, Adolf Loos, Jock D. Peters, Francesco Stapp and Bruno Paul. It was credited as the last of its kind to embody “the diverse and inclusive nature of European modernism before the founding of CIAM, the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, which promoted an idealistic and exclusive interpretation of the movement. Yet the 1931 exhibit was the last of its kind. Within two years Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany and German art became, once again, the instrument of a narrowly defined nationalism" (50-51).

Harrod, W. Owen. “Toward a Transatlantic Style: The Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk and German Modernism in the United States.”  Studies in the Decorative Arts , FALL-WINTER 2004-2005, Vol. 12, No. 1