International studio (21.1903/1904(1904))

It is one of the fundamental laws of Austria to
teach her people to help themselves, and although
they cannot earnvery much, still they manage toget
along; theirwants are small, the homeindustries are
kept up, and their small earnings at any rate sufHce
to keep theworkers from being a bürden to their
parishes.
It was with this idea that, some seventy-hve
years ago, the government erected a number of
schools for the purpose of training teachers to go

WICKER CHAIR

WICKER CHAtRS

DESIGNED BY HANS VOLLMER

DESIGNED BY HANS VOLLMER
EXBCUTED BY FRAG-RUDNIKER
STUFF BY LEOPOLD BAUER AND BACKHAUSEN & SONS

out and instruct the villagers in the different Crown
lands in the art of basket-weaving, so that during
the hard winters when agricultural work was an
impossibility they might be, at any rate, able to
keep the wolf from the door. The work is still
being carried on, the teachers being trained at the
Imperial School in Vienna, under the Austrian
Museum, of which Hofrath von Scala is the
Director, whence they are sent out to the
villages of Bohemia and Austrian Poland, and
Croatia, Carinthia, and
Moravia, to teach their art
- *. <, ^ . -w t" others. The Director
of these schools, Mr.
Funke, is an artist, and
he spends much of his
time in designing new
patterns, which are sent to
the districts to be copied;
or old patterns, and others
from the East are made
and sent to the district
schools to Ue again copied
and produced in large
quantities for the foreign
market. But this applies
chieHy to the basket
trade, which has hecome
staple; for though at one
time the eiforts of the
villagers were conhned to
market and packingbaskets,
325

WtCKER CHAIR DESIGNED BY II. FUNKE
EXECUTED IN THE IMPERIAL
PATTERN WORKSHOPS, VIENNA