169. AXEL EINAR HJORTH. “Marianne”, a Nordiska kompaniet 1930s cabinet, walnut and lemon.

Behind the doors drawers and shelves, Tray marked NK R 38705 - C MÖB and round tray NK (inside door). Height 150, 113.5 x 55 cm

PROVENANCE
For the Nordic Company's spring exhibition in 1935, Hjorth designed a bedside furniture named “Marianne”, executed in a sober colour scheme in dressed lemon and walnut, which was premiered at the department store's spring exhibition in 1935. The auction furniture consists of a pair of bedside tables, a pair of bed frames, a pair of chairs, a cupboard and a chest of drawers. Notably, all the furniture, except the dresser, is marked with the Commission number “Möb”, which is a marking often found on the company's exhibition furniture, making it highly probable that it was this actual piece of furniture that was displayed at the launch of the department store in the spring of 1935. Instead, the agency bears the drawing number 41067, which refers to a bureau specially commissioned by “Andersson R”. Probably, it is this R Andersson who once acquired the furniture from Nordiska Kompaniet, and then supplemented the furniture group with a specially commissioned chest of the same model.

HISTORIAN
Few Swedish furniture architects have such a good international reputation or are so strongly associated with an era as Axel Einar Hjorth. As chief architect of Nordiska Kompaniet between 1927 and 1938, Hjorth was one of the most influential furniture designers of the interwar period. For NK's furniture department, he designed everything from high-quality catalogued furniture for serial production, to unique pieces of splendor for Burgundy clients or world exhibitions. Today, many people associate Hjorth primarily with his stylish rustic pine furniture, which was once developed to furnish Swedish sports cabins — and which today gladly adorn celebrity homes on the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps it is precisely this breadth that makes Hjorth such an inimitable and impressive designer.

In magnificent pieces such as the “Louis” cabinet for the 1929 Barcelona World's Fair, he perfected the luxurious classicism of the twentieth century, in order to adapt and rationalise his design language after the breakthrough of functionalism in 1930, and thus successfully manoeuvre the changes to the more austere and function-oriented ideals of the new age. Hjorth deftly handled the transition from Swedish Grace to functionalism, and as the 1930s progressed, a new style emerged that has come to be known as Swedish Modern. Unlike stripped-down, undecorated functionalism, this softer form of modernism resumed traditional features and materials, and was more permissive of decorative elements, but without sacrificing either quality or innovative design language. Even these new expressions of style mastered the versatile Hjort. His magnificent cabinet “Paris”, sold in 2014 at Stockholms Auktionsverk, represented a milestone in the style's successful international launch, when it was shown at the 1937 Paris World's Fair.

LITERATURE
The model depicted in the Nordic Company's furniture catalogue 1935.