Dagobert Peche

This first and only edition of the earliest book on decorative arts designer Dagobert Peche (1881-1923), written by art historian and Vienna University professor Max Eisler (1881-1937), includes 100 full plates of Peche’s designs for lamps, glass, textiles, ceramics, jewelry, silverware, wallpaper, and interiors. Peche became artistic director of the Wiener Werkstätte in 1915, a production community of visual artists founded by Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann in Vienna in 1903. Peche’s designs, illustrated on the decorative cover and throughout the book, have a distinctive linear quality and often include playful putti, reclining nudes, or costumed harlequin figures posing suggestively, reminiscent of the imagery of the Rococo period. Hoffmann described Peche as "the greatest decorative genius that Austria has harboured since the Baroque period." This volume is an important survey of this remarkable designer.