Master Art

Designed by: Adolf Loos, Max Schmidt, Werkmeister Berka, Vienna, around 1900

Executed by: Friedrich Otto Schmidt

Eight-legged variant,  trunk legs carved out of solid mahogany, surface partially dyed to rosewood and professionally repolished, original copper fittings, renewed marble top with fossil inclusions of ammonites and belemnites, excellent condition

Excellent Viennese cabinet making

Ø 87 cm

The elephant trunk table was a very popular model, which is being produced to the present day by the company Friedrich Otto Schmidt. The dynamic and at the same time very delicate execution suggests that our table stems from the early production series.

Loos used the “elephant trunk” table for the first time in 1902 to furnish Dr. Hugo Haberfeld’s study. The table’s design is inspired by Anglo-Saxon models, such the“occasional table” by the London company Hampton & Sons that was depicted in the 1899 issue of the "Cabinet Maker". The company Schmidt presented its “elephant trunk” table for the first time in 1900 at a winter exhibition in the Austrian Museum for Arts and Industries (today's MAK). One year later, Koloman Moser used it in the XIIIth exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists in the Vienna Secession. This outstanding table was also used by Loos to furnish the homes of the Turnovsky, Weiss, Friedmann, and Rosenfeld families.