Brothers Settmacher – Viennese Gentlemen

In my last Viennese portrait I talked at the end a bit about charming Viennese gentlemen. Today I want to look more deeply into this topic with a portrait of the protectors of women all over the world – the brothers Settmacher. They produced thimbles in the 14th district (Penzing) to protect women in all continents and some men too.

Aglaia von Enderes – A singing lark doesn’t bring the summer?

„Some inches below the green grass mother made him a bed; the brown furrow slice is his blanket, fine roots are hanging everywhere, his future food. Deep silence and peace around him; the sun lays her hot beams across the soil, warm damp breath swells through the ground. Four to six weeks pass, then something is moving and stirring in the egg and a tiny clumsy grub is crawling out of it.” (Maikäfers Leben und Sterben – May Beetle’s Life and Death [1])

„An egoist with an unfriendly apart character, ponderous appearance and high self-sufficiency. He lives like a hermit and selfish as an old confirmed bachelor does and takes care of his own belly.” (Der Dachs – The Bauson [1])

Family Artaria – Paradise Vienna

Visitors and people who moved to Vienna love Vienna; Viennese love Vienna less.
The Italian family Artaria founded a firm in Vienna in 1770 and led love lead to actions. From 1779 onwards they published the famous “Sammlung von Aussichten der Residenzstadt Wien” (Collection of Views of the Residential Town Vienna). Views of Vienna in 57 coloured outline etchings. They do not only show buildings but also people and their life in the town. Among others the park “Augarten” then opened for the public – today my favourite jogging area. The park now still looks in some parts like on the four “Augarten” pages of the collection.
Not only did they produce a sheet of pictures of the city – it even grew with the development of the town because the pages were updated: Again not only the buildings but also the fashion of the inhabitants. But not all changes of the social life from Josephinism to Biedermeier, from the times of “reforms in law, administration, education, culture and the catholic church” to the times of “disappointments after the Restauration of 1815 and the nearly complete renunciation of public-political life” got visualised. Perhaps the idealised town sold better to “tourists”.

Viennese Prams – Time Travel of Men from 1860 to 2007

“When is a man a man? ” The Wien Museum (Museum of Vienna) adds another answer to the already existing many answers on this question.

The new exhibition „Baby an Bord – Mit dem Kinderwagen durch das 20. Jahrhundert“ (Baby on Board – With the Pram through the 20th Century) shows prams and tells pram history with Viennese history. Fascinating pieces are to be seen. Among others the two wheeled Bugholz-Kinderfahrstuhl (bowed wooden children driving chair) (1905). A mixture of Thonet and a wheelchair. But perhaps handy as due to two additional small wheels one can easily climb side walks.

In the 1860 years the serial production of prams starts in Austria. A pram man is a pram inventor, pram producer at that times:
Protected with privileges by the emperor English prototypes are being improved in their stability and their spring system (1862). Cradle prams developed (1877). A „pram with an automated swaying movement“ invented (1900). A folding pram (1927) and a „stairs climbing transportation cart and especially pram“ (1956) patented.

Johann Georg Lahner – Frankfurt Vienna, Vienna Frankfurt

From the Prater you can go to Westbahnhof with the tram number five and just do a small „Viennese world“ trip. After a while you will get in a state of trance because there are so many details to be seen and the tram track has many bends in the district Josefstadt. Then you reach the seventh district and the tram stops at Kaiserstraße/Neustiftgasse (photo). You look out of the window, a bit exhausted, and there it is – the cradle of the famous Frankfurter/Viennese sausages.

A plaque in adequate brown colours tells you that „here the butcher family Lahner produced from 1832 to 1967 the sausages known only in Vienna as Frankfurter sausages but in the whole world as Viennese sausages“. Johann