Carl Einar Forseth Mosaic Study for the Golden Hall in Stockholm City Hall Executed by Puhl & Wagner, 1921-1923. Marks: RA...

Description

Carl Einar Forseth Mosaic Study for the Golden Hall in Stockholm City Hall Executed by Puhl & Wagner, 1921-1923
Marks: RAVENNA MOSAICS INC, NEW YORK
74-1/2 x 52 inches (189.2 x 132.1 cm)

In early 1921, Swedish artist and designer Carl Einar Forseth submitted plans for a complex mosaic scheme to adorn the Great Hall of the newly built Stockholm City Hall. Forseth developed draft drawings or cartoons depicting allegorical events and figures in Swedish history in a highly stylized manner. This treatment of the subject matter is reminiscent of Byzantine art and reflective of the short-lived, yet influential Swedish Grace Movement, which developed in step with nascent Art Deco throughout the 1920s. The cartoons were executed as panels by Puhl & Wagner, a leading manufacturer of glass mosaics and leaded glass based in Berlin, and delivered to the panel for consideration. In March 1921, Forseth and Puhl & Wagner were awarded the contract to outfit the Great Hall. By 1923, when construction on Stockholm City Hall was completed, more than 18 million glass tesserae had been installed in the Great Hall.

The present panel depicts an elderly yet muscular man carrying a boulder on his shoulder and leading a youth executed in opaque polychrome tesserae against metallic gold ground. It corresponds with a cartoon now held in the permanent collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and depicted in an archival image in the Saint Louis University Digital Collections, which contains a collection related to Puhl & Wagner and it's Saint Louis-based venture Ravenna Mosaics Company. It also appears in the background of an archival image of the Puhl & Wagner workshop, also in the SLU Digital Collections.

Few examples of these study panels for Stockholm City Hall's Great Hall have emerged and been presented at auction. This is a rare opportunity to acquire a work related to the creative process that led to a masterwork of early 20th century Swedish design.





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