Ladies’ Handbag

• Josef Hoffmann (1870‒1956)
• Execution: Wiener Werkstätte, Moritz Zander
• 1910
• Leather, gold-embossed, brass clasp, inside lined with rep
• Leopold Museum, Vienna

This handbag is made of black leather with linear gold embossing, and finished with a brass clasp. Josef Hoffmann created the design and the pattern for the bag, which was then handmade by Moritz Zander of the leather workshop. The Vienna Workshop had its own leather workshop from 1903, producing luxury leather goods ranging from book bindings to jewelry cases with great success. The production range was soon expanded to include exotic leathers like ray or snake.