School of Koloman Moser

Berta Zuckerkandl was one of the most remarkable personalities of Viennese society during the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire up until the Second World War.  She was active as a novelist, journalist and patron of modern art.  Consequently she was a committed and enthusiastic supporter of the Vienna Seccession and later the Wiener Werkstätte.  Her salon was a meeting place for countless artists, and her circle of friends included Auguste Rodin, Josef Hoffmann, Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler and Max Reinhardt.  Her marriage to Emil Zuckerkandl, a famous anatomist of the Viennese School, opened the door for her into the medical community.  It was through her recommendation that Hoffmann was awarded the commission to re-design the Purkersdorf Sanatorium, of which her brother-in-law Victor Zuckerkandl was director.

Sotheby's would like to thank Janis Staggs-Flinchum and Dr. Ernst Ploil for their assistance with the cataloguing of the present lot and the following four lots.