Posted 8 years ago
MCRobert
(26 items)
I picked these two chairs up at an auction and am very curious as to date of manufacture and model #. Dark reddish brown color with pressed image seats, I was surprised that there are 4 separate marks under the seat. Both chairs have the same marks - a paper glued under rim that says this is authentic Thonet and was sold out of a showroom in New York on East 32nd Street, there is a Thonet Brand on the inside front, there is a stamp on the front underside of support brace 'Patent May 1 1906' and then on the back inner support that runs down to the legs it is stamped 'Patent Applied For.". Does anyone have additional information ????
I was referred to the Thonet website, forwarded pictures and a request and received this today from Thonet:
Dear Robert,
Your beautiful chair No.393-S3 was produced around 1900 in one of the THONET factories in the Austrian Empire, especially for the american market.
The estimated collector’s value is about 400€.
Best regards,
Anke-Maria Thonet
Very well investigated MCRobet, and congrats of your success. Did you look at the old catalogue pages on the Thonet Chairs - Images page?
Great work.
Thinking more about your chairs, you must be pleased that no one stripped them down, and then took a can of white paint to them.
Welcome to CW.
Thanks Gillian - I spent last Sunday perusing a few of the catalogs to no avail and read many, many of the various requests for information about bentwood chairs on the web; of course this style has been made for so long and produced by so many different manufacturers the information is overwhelming. I felt fairly confident that an imitator would not have stamped 'Patent Applied For' on a chair and so when I saw that Thonet offered the lookup service it seemed the right path to take in determining at least the model and manufacturing date of the pieces.
I have been following a number of DIY's on Instagram and cringe when I see the fine old wood get the 'shabby/chic' makeover and noticed this was also happening to Bentwood furniture through my research on these 2 chairs. AAACCCCKKKK!!! Call me a traditionalist in this regard but I believe the wood should breathe and live!
Though I have been focused on the American Mid-Century Modern movement the past few months my heart jumps for anything wood or just well designed and I must admit I did not purchase these blindly. I attended the auction preview the proceeding friday and was looking closely at some mid-century Bassett items, a couple mcm lamps and some Russel Wright American Modern pieces - all items I was familiar and comfortable with and it just so happened that a month ago I purchased two mid-century Thonet lounge chairs for our living room and had been traversing the web reading everything about the Thonet (Tone-it !!!!) company and its history, as well as, reading many many lamentations and even diatribes about the crazy confusion around bentwood cafe chairs produced during the 20th century. I knew whoever took these chairs had some work ahead of themselves.
During my validation of the lounge chairs I got quite the education on bentwood everything in the process and when I noticed the labeling and stamps during preview thought these would be worth the risk if the opportunity arose ... and it did!
Thank you for the welcome and I hope to cross paths again.
Regards.