Auction announcements
16th October 2014
Lot 83: This chair and stool were not produced by Thonet but presumably a Czechoslovakian manufacturer.

Tubular steel, chromed, fabric
Germany, c. 1930
Manufacturer: presumably Thonet, Frankenberg
Corresponds to the models B33 and B37 by Marcel Breuer
Chair height: 82 cm, 49 x 63 cm
Stool height: 44 cm, 45 x 50 cm
Two matching design icons from the time of tubular steel furniture

Already in the 1930s, the factory was the world’s largest producer of tubular steel furniture of the famous Bauhaus architects and designers, who worked as pioneers with the novel material. To this day Thonet tubular steel chairs are regarded as milestones in design history. The present chair and stool corresponds to the models B33 and B37 by Marcel Breuer. Both have a green fabric.



The chair measures 82 x 49 x 63 cm. The stool measures 44 x 45 x 50 cm. Both items are in very good condition with a few signs of age and wear.

Thonet

The furniture company Thonet was established by Michael Thonet (1796-1871) and is family-owned to this day. Michael Thonet began to develop the production of furniture from mechanic to industrial manufacturing. For this purpose, he experimented with bentwood. In 1836 he acquired the Michelsmuehle, a glue factory in Boppard but encountered financial difficulties. He had to close this establishment in 1841 and moved to Vienna with his family. There he opened an establishment of his own again in 1849 he named it ‘Gebrueder Thonet’. He achieved his breakthrough design with the Viennese bistro chair, also known as Chair No. 14 (1859). The chair was designed at the first Thonet factory, which opened in Koritchan, Moravia in 1859. Factories later opened in various German, French, and Austrian locations. There, the company employed new working procedures to standardize manufacturing, such as division of labor and movable parts that made chairs a relatively cheap mass product. The chair turned Thonet into an internationally successful business; the company produced and sold two million different objects in 1912. It had sale locations across Europe as well as in Chicago and New York. In the 1930s, tubular steel was added as a new material and Thonet produced designs by Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Even today, new designs in addition to the classics are produced in the company headquarters in Hessian Frankenberg.

Shipping costs excl. statutory VAT and plus 2,5% (+VAT) shipping insurance.