Nightstand

A nightstand by the bed was a necessary piece of furniture in a bedroom. In addition to a drawer, designed to keep small items close at hand, it had a compartment with a door or a hinged cover design for storing a portable toilet, also called a chamber pot. Because of this, a nightstand's interior was often panelled with marble, which made keeping it hygienic easier. The displayed nightstand was made by the Portois & Fix company. Purchased together with other furniture by this manufacturer (S.1099MŁ; 1598MŁ; S.2912MŁ; S.3900MŁ; S.6129 – 6133MŁ), it came to the Łańcut residence around 1900. At that time, the owners of Łańcut, Elżbieta (née Radziwiłł) and Roman Potocki were collecting furnishings for the modernised and renovated interiors of the castle. The well-known Viennese company Portois & Fix provided comprehensive services in the production of interior fittings and furniture. Before 1900, it executed orders for the historical styles fashionable in the 19th century. The company was founded in 1881. The interior decorator August Portois, French by origin, had extensive experience in the furniture trade. He managed a branch of the Parisian trade association 'Societé Commerciale de Paris' established in Vienna in the early 1970s. Anton Fix came from a family of upholsterers-decorators. In 1872, he took over the Viennese workshop, which had been headed by his father, Johan Fix, for 40 years. Relying on the artisan background of the Fix family, the company started the production of high-quality furniture. August Portois withdrew from the company due to ill health and died shortly afterwards in 1895. The company continued to operate under the same name. It is worth remembering that since 1900, in Vienna, Portois & Fix introduced the innovative Modernist fashion to interior design without losing its popularity on the market. Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967