Small Vienna is a rectangular piece of Podocarpus latifolius wood (Orliac 2007), 25.5 × 5.2 × 2 cm, slightly convex but not fluted.
In Fischer's words, In 1882 an archaeological expedition aboard the SMS Hyäne visited Easter Island, and captain Wilhelm Geiseler purchased two tablets.
The purchase had been arranged by Schlubach, the German consul in Valparaíso, at the request of Adolf Bastian, the director of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
They were then sold to the Austrian Vice-Consul in Hamburg, Heinrich Freiherr von Westenholz, who donated them to Vienna's Museum für Völkerkunde in 1886.
Alexander Salmon, Jr, the manager of the Brander plantations on Easter Island who had transcribed and (poorly) translated the 'readings' that Jaussen obtained for his texts, encouraged the manufacture of Rapanui artworks, and several scholars, notably Métraux, believe the small Vienna tablet to be a forgery.