ArtistSwedish
Fredrik Schriever-Abeln
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Fredrik Schriever-Abeln worked within the current of Scandinavian Modernism that ran through Swedish design studios in the late 1950s and 1960s, a period when furniture design in the Nordic countries was placing new emphasis on the expressive possibilities of wood. His output was modest in volume but precise in ambition, and his collaboration with Örebro Glasindustri produced pieces that sit at an interesting junction between the organic sculptural idiom of Danish design and the restrained clarity associated with Swedish manufacturing.
The piece that defines his legacy is the 'Condor' coffee table, produced by Örebro Glasindustri around 1967. Its base consists of crossed teak legs - an X-frame structure - that hold the glass top through tension rather than hardware, relying entirely on the precision of the carved arms. The joinery, using mortise and tenon construction at the stretcher, displays the kind of demanding craftsmanship that the Scandinavian Modern movement insisted upon even in commercially produced furniture. The design exists in several variants: a clear glass top that leaves the teak architecture fully visible, and a smoke-tinted version that softens the composition. Schriever-Abeln extended the Condor vocabulary into seating, producing a matching armchair with the same distinctive X-form wood sides.
For years, the Condor table circulated in the secondary market without a confirmed designer credit, and it was commonly attributed to the Danish designer Illum Wikkelsø, whose work shares certain structural qualities. The correction of this attribution has significantly changed how Schriever-Abeln is positioned in the vintage design market. As a named designer rather than an anonymous Scandinavian craftsman, his pieces have attracted renewed collector attention, particularly in European and American design markets where mid-century Scandinavian furniture commands consistent demand.
Beyond the Condor series, Schriever-Abeln's broader body of work indicates a designer operating comfortably across both residential and commercial furniture contexts, though surviving documentation on individual commissions outside the Örebro collaboration remains sparse. The surname Schriever-Abeln carries German-Baltic roots that were not uncommon among Swedish professional families of the period, suggesting a background that may have given him exposure to design currents beyond Scandinavia.
On the Nordic auction market, Schriever-Abeln's furniture appears primarily at Swedish regional houses. The Condor coffee table in its various configurations - teak base with clear or smoked glass, in mahogany or beech variants - accounts for the great majority of lots, with top hammer prices reaching around 5,200 SEK for well-preserved examples. Prices are modest relative to better-documented Scandinavian designers, which partly reflects the late attribution correction and the limited scale of his known output. As the design world continues to surface mid-century figures whose work was previously circulating under wrong names, Schriever-Abeln stands as one of the more tangible examples of how attribution shapes market value.