The design of the two panels of this replica differs significantly from Islamic stucco and glass windows, despite the symmetrical arrangement of the individual elements (circles, flowers, interlacing). The most significant difference however, when comparison is made with examples from the Ottoman Empire, is the use of wood instead of stucco for the latticework. A similar material transfer from stucco to wood can be observed in the windows designed by the British architect William Burges (1827–1881) for the Arab Room of Cardiff Castle in Wales (IG_484–IG_487). Like these windows, the replica discussed here, as well as four similar replicas in the Wien Museum collection, was executed in a local (Austrian) workshop.
While William Burges was drawing on his first-hand knowledge of Islamic stucco and glass windows acquired during his journey to Turkey in 1856/1857, the unknown designer of this and the four other replicas took the windows of the Arab Room of the k.k. Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie in Vienna (today the MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst) (IG_264) as a direct model. These windows were designed by the Bohemian architects František Schmoranz (1845–1892) and Johann Machytka (1844–1887) and made between 1881 and 1883.
As in the MAK windows, the lattice of this later replica was not backed with individual pieces of colourless and coloured glass, but by a single colourless glass sheet on which the main lines of the decoration were painted in enamel colours. It is therefore the third link in a chain of reception that goes back to the stucco and glass window OR 3606 (IG_360), held today at the MAK, which was transferred from the collection of the Orientalisches Museum in Vienna (from 1886 the Handelsmuseum) to the k.k. Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie in 1907.
On display until 1931, Schmoranz and Machytka’s Arab Room can be considered an important reference point for Austrian architects and patrons, among them the entrepreneur Anton Johann Kainz-Bindl (1879–1957). The latter travelled to the East shortly after marrying Maria Russleitner in April 1900. Together, they visited Egypt, the Near East, Turkey, and Bulgaria and acquired various art objects during their journey. To present them in a suitable setting, Kainz-Bindl had an Arab-style interior installed on the mezzanine floor of the four-storey residential and commercial building that he had erected at Währinger Gürtel 166 after plans by the Viennese architects Dehm & Olbrich. Construction work started in the spring of 1900, and the Arab Room is dated 1901 (Architektonische Rundschau, 1902, p. 71; Orosz, 2021, pp. 98, 104). With the installation of an Arab Room, Kainz-Bindl was following a trend that had become established not only in aristocratic circles, but also among the wealthy bourgeoisie, who, like the nobility, wished to present their artefacts in a specially designed Islamic-style room, thereby showcasing their cosmopolitanism (Giese, 2016; Giese, 2019).
Kainz-Bindl’s Arab Room has an area of c.30m2 and is lined with wooden panelling 2.20m in height with cabinets, shelves, and cupboards for displaying Islamic objects, as well as a bay with a Secessionist entrance arch and custom-made mashrabiyyāton three sides housing five replicas of stucco and glass windows at the top (IG_371—IG_375, see also Linked objects and images, dimensions according to Orosz, 2021, p. 104). The wooden panelling was made by Portois & Fix, a company founded in Vienna in 1881 and specializing in furniture and interior design (Orosz, 2021, p. 105). It is therefore possible that the mashrabiyyāt and the wooden lattices of the windows were produced by the same firm.
The replica discussed here was originally placed in the centre of the main side of the bay window, opposit the entrance arch. It was framed by two identical replicas with flowers in a vase (IG_371, IG_372), in order to respect the disposition of such windows in traditional Islamic interiors, where a central panel is usually flanked by two identical in composition to each other (see for instance IG_118, IG_119, IG_449).
The Arab Room remained unchanged in the patron’s family for over 100 years. It was then acquired by the Wien Museum from the Viennese jewellery and enamel artist Ulrike Zehetbauer (born 1934), the wife of Kainz-Bindl’s grandson, in 2015. In 2017, it was displayed in the exhibition ‘ISLAM in Österreich – Eine Kulturgeschichte’ at Schallaburg Castle (Schollach, Austria). The bay window with its five replicas has recently been reintegrated into the permanent exhibition of the Wien Museum, which reopened in 2023 at its new location on Karlsplatz in Vienna (Orosz, 2021, pp. 98–99).
