Circa 1930 German Side Table

About the Item

Our table was made of birch, solid and veneered, stained a rich brown, and topped off with a slab of Bohemian breccia marble. We date it to around 1928, and attribute the design to Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot, who coined the term Kultivierte Sachlichkeit (Cultured Objectivity) to describe his work, and distinguish it from the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) practiced by his contemporaries Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Lily Reich. The table bears a passing resemblance to a considerably simplified, marble-topped ovoid one that he designed for his 1934 Berlin living room. Breuhaus was a man on the make. The first of his three marriages was to the daughter of an industrialist, who financed the building of luxury villas and workers’ housing designed by his son-in-law. In 1929, Breuhaus, the son of a dentist, added “de Groot” to his name, falsely linking himself to a distinguished family of painters. By then, he’d been fudging his academic record for years. That didn’t prevent a teaching appointment at the State University of Bavaria, which allowed him to add the prestigious “Herr Professor” prefix to his name. Yet he never followed through on the teaching — he was far too busy designing more luxury villas (commissions he accepted only if he could furnish them as well), and products for his own company, which included furniture, textiles, wallpapers, lighting, and fine silver. In addition to designing aircraft interiors for Lufthansa, and pullman railroad cars, he landed plum commissions for the first-class interiors of the Bremen, the fastest and most technologically advanced passenger liner in the world on entering service in 1929, and the Hindenburg, the dirigible that met a famously fiery end at Lakehurst, New Jersey. If something of a charlatan, Breuhaus was nevertheless an extremely talented designer, and one of Germany’s most famous ones between the wars, both at home and abroad. Yet, in spite of his opportunism, and having designed the private plane of Hermann Göring, he was opposed to the Nazis. His third wife, who was also his assistant, went so far as to help Jews immigrate. As a result, in 1941, his license to practice architecture was cancelled. And so, when the National Socialist nightmare finally came to an end, there was no need for rehabilitation, and he hit the ground running. In his last years, on reflecting on his life, Breuhaus told an interviewer, “I’ve designed handrails, doors and lamps, as well as furniture, vases, tableware, cigarette cases, cutlery—it’s all part of it. There’s nothing minor in a cultured house. I’ve written novels and painted pictures, too. The novels were lousy, and my wife says so are the paintings.”.

Attributed to:

Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot 1 (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 23 in (58.42 cm)Diameter: 25 in (63.5 cm)

Style:

Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Birch,Marble,Stained,Veneer

Place of Origin:

Germany

Period:

1920-1929