I Hope the Price Doesn’t Kill You! - Peder Moos’ Medicine Cabinet

Peder Moos’ (1906–1991) furniture is modern and yet draws on the centuries-old traditions of cabinetmaking. He was a furniture virtuoso who designed wooden furniture with admirable dedication, paying untold attention to detail. His ideas were, without exception, original and uncompromising – he sought perfection. Peder Moos is unarguably one of the greatest and most eccentric personalities that Danish furniture design has been blessed with. The cabinetmaker from Southern Jutland had a very special approach to his trade, and he managed to highlight the organic and living character of the wood to perfection in his work. His ability to shape wood as if it were plasticine, coupled with his simple and distinctive design idiom, remains every bit as fascinating to this day. Moos was a cabinetmaker by the grace of God.

In 1962, Moos was commissioned to make a medicine cabinet for a private home in Vedbæk. In the mid-1950s, the seller’s father was the head of the department responsible for the government’s purchases of furniture and art for Danish embassies around the world. He therefore met with Moos several times during this period and also purchased a full-sized corner cabinet for himself, and later made other personal purchases from Moos. In the 1960s, after the seller’s parents had built a new house in Denmark, the seller’s mother suggested to her husband that she would like a wall-mounted medicine cabinet for their bathroom. Knowing her husband as well as she did, she stressed that it should just be a fairly ordinary metal cabinet. However, as the seller’s father only ever wanted the best of the best, it came as no surprise that he consequently contacted Peder Moos to commission the medicine cabinet. With no idea of what they were getting into, the couple left the design and manufacturing in extremely safe and free hands. Moos finished the cabinet around a year later and contacted the owner to arrange a meeting. They unpacked the medicine cabinet together, and what a surprise they had when the little jewel was revealed! With two shelves, a lock and shutter doors made of walnut and with Moos’ characteristic inlays, the cabinetmaker had outdone himself once again. It was a time-consuming and expensive process to make the medicine cabinet, and Moos clearly had his misgivings about mentioning the price. To cushion the blow, Moos gifted the new owner with a small pencil as a bonus. The correspondence between Moos and the owner is included in the sale at auction, as is the pencil.

The inlays of the medicine cabinet and the living character of the wood are, as usual, enhanced to perfection, each and every wooden dowel is a work of art. Moos’ method was extremely time-consuming. The furniture was mostly made to order, and the customers often had to wait a long time to receive the items commissioned. As one-offs formed the mainstay of his production, the furniture was also extremely expensive at the time and tantamount to museum pieces from the start. One of Moos’ wonderful pieces of furniture can now be yours.