Restoring/replacing Drevounia Czechoslovakia Bentwood seats from wooden to woven

Hi! Wondering if any furniture enthusiasts could lend me their ear for a moment. I have these chairs (https://imgur.com/a/9W6LdAC) , Bentwood I believe they are called, and then there are markings them that say "Drevounia" and "Made in Czechovslovakia". Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately since I might be able to make them better?) the seat is broken, but the rest seems still sturdy. Wondering if anyone knew whether I should replace the seat with the same kind of wooden base or if I could get some weave/rattan thing going on like these chairs here https://www.curatedspaces.com.au/.../copy-of-set-of-six.... I like the idea of weaving it myself, since weaving is a kind of ancestral skill, but I've read elsewhere on the net that some chairs you can't put weaving into because the wooden frame isn't strong enough. And then if I replace with a weave, will it loose some of it's original authenticity since it wasn't originally woven? Excited to be part of this community, I love historical objects. Irreplaceable.

 

Hi tippi, most people won't click on links, and not everyone is on Facebook. Below is your imgur photo of the seat, but since I am not on Facebook, I can't access the other link you posted.

 

A couple of pics from the site that @Any Jewelry couldn't access:

 

I don't know much about caning replacement seats, but don't you have to have existing holes in the chair to make it work?

 

The second picture appears to show a chair with a prewoven replacement. Much easier for the average person to do, but if you want the chairs to be true to their original condition, you'll need to find a person who has training in the caning technique. Not cheap.

 

I agree. Our cheap kitchen chairs have the same pre-woven caning. They look pretty much like those, only they are beechwood.
You will need a router to make a groove in the frame around the seat for the pre-woven mat to be pressed in and held in place by thicker cane. It would be a pity to do that to your chairs.

 

Check your local antique malls. There is a caner at one of them in this area.

 

Drevounia, as far as I can gather, was an import/export firm, not a manufacturer. My assumption is the chairs were made by TON, the current name of the Czech bentwood furniture company started by Michael Thonet in 1861 and nationalized after WW2.

I had a set of Polish-made Thonet-style chairs and was quoted $200 (Central Texas) to re-cane one seat. These were hand-woven seats, not the pre-woven, press-in cane type. And they had a 6-month waiting list at the time.

This style of chair, Thonet model #18, has been mass produced by a number of companies over the past 150 years, and therefore are not particularly valuable. If you want a set with cane seats, you can likely find them at auction for the price of re-caning one chair.

 

JMHO.
post-war copies of Thonet. 1950s and later. doubtful if they were ever having the permission of the original Thonet owners or if they restarted with the old Thonet factory that belonged to the Thonet network before the war. especially Prague still has the same Kaffeehaus culture like Vienna.

 

You can't decide which to do........ press cane or hand woven.

If the chair doesn't have the holes for the weaving, then it would have an indent where the edges of the pre-cane seat would be inserted. It's not a matter of which you decide..............it's what the chair has.

I've done the pre-cane...........much easier and faster than hand woven. I've seen it done and I have a friend who used to do it. Quite time consuming, and if one can find someone to do it, it's expensive. Deservedly so............

 

thank you for doing this judy. new to the forum so still figuring out the culture

 

thank you

 

there's no existing holes, just a platform around the seat where you would glue a wooden base or perhaps a pre-woven seat. i'm not sure on the latter.

 

hm interesting. what do you think would be the best way to repair the chair? just get a fitted wooden base? then it would be as close to the original as possible? I was thinking of also sanding down the varnish and painting a black one over it. would that also modulate the chair too much from it's original state, i'm not sure if the brown of it is even the original colour, it doesn't look that even in places like someone else along the way went over it. thank you for your response, learning a lot.

 

what wood are these ones? how can you tell?

 

I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Haven't heard of antique malls but they sound fun

 

Maybe you call them something different. Many antique sellers rent spaces, booths or showcases in a building. The spaces are next to each other. There is a front desk that collects the money for all the sellers. Sort of like a bazaar. I have spent many pleasurable hours in them. It's like being in a candy store.

 

I have no idea, but I meant ours are natural beech colour (as well as beechwood). Overhere beech is also used to refer to the colour, as is cherry, for instance.

 

You can probably find a local caner on the internet or in the local Pink Pages. (Aussie equivalent of the Yellow Pages)

 

They've got those in the UK also but they don't exist in most of the rest of the world. Everywhere I've been there are fairs, however.