Ontwerp voor een schrijftafel met opstand, met zijaanzicht en plattegronden onder beide aanzichten 1852

B. Winghofer created this design for a writing table with elevation in ink on paper. Without a date, we can only speculate on the cultural and institutional factors that might have shaped it. Judging from the neoclassical style, we might guess that it was made in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century when there was a high demand for precisely this kind of design. The need to provide drawings for furniture is linked to new forms of industrial production, and the specialisation of labour that went along with it. In urban centres there were academies of art and design which promoted the skills that could then be taken up and adapted in furniture workshops. More research could be done into the work of B. Winghofer, the kinds of patrons he or she might have had, and the circulation of design knowledge in the period. These would all be relevant to our understanding of this drawing.