This chair has me stumped!

My husband and I are going through a huge estate that he inherited. I am the researcher so my job is to help him with finding out all the info on hundreds and hundreds of items. 90% of the time I am able to get info on most items. However, I have researched this chair and I can't find anything that is similar to it. The odd thing is that the legs are not straight like most of the bentwood chairs. The legs on this chair are made out of one bentwood piece that goes from front to back with a brace attached. I would appreciate any info that you might have.

 

Wow! That's oh so Danish Modern. If it's not Eames, probably one of those Scandinavian designers.

 

Did you look underneath for any maker's marks, country marks, code numbers, etc...?

 

it may help to know where the chair is located...or where it may have come from.

 

Not one I am familiar with. My guess would be European in origin as well.

 

I Googled "bentwood contour chair" just to see if anything jumped out at me. It didn't. But I must say... I've never seen a more eccentric assortment of sittables. Yours fits right in!

 

These are other companies that also made similar chairs. Herman Miller, Poul Jeppeson, Denmark, Thonet.

 

I finally honed it down to bent plywood chairs last night and still didn't find anything close to this chair.

There has to a word or term that describes those dowels in the chair construction. I'd assume they provide stability/structural integrity.

I was surprised to find out that the sleek bentwood style was done in Europe as early as 1930s-1940s, as Brad mentioned above.

I hope drkatherine1 will come back and let us know if there's any info on the bottom of the chair.

 

Laura,
I have examined the chair and there are no markings whatsoever. I am with you with regard to the unusual legs on this chair. The dowels are used as a spacer and support. The rivets....I guess that is what they are go through them. If the dowels were not there you would plainly see the metal tubes of the rivets. This way the dowels hid them. This is what makes the chair so unusual is the base being made up of bentwood which forms the legs.

 

Could you flip it over and post a pic of the bottom? There are people here who can read the hardware (rivets), LOL!

 

Laura here is the only other photo I currently have. It does show rivets. The chair is not at my house. I will have to get another close photo the next time I am at the house.

 

I just wanted to tell everyone....thanks for being so welcoming. I have spent almost every evening since January researching the shear volume of items in this house. At times it is overwhelming but it needs to be done. Even if I don't figure out what this dang chair is....oh there is so much more furniture to figure out.

 

You might try contacting Wright auction house......

https://www.wright20.com/

 

Wow I've seen a lot of bent plywood chairs but that is definitely a rare fine! Curious to know who made it.

 

You and me both...I took some photos of the rivets and will post them later but no obvious markings on either side.

 

Yours looks rather early. Have you searched on the Vitra Design Museum site?

http://www.design-museum.de/en/information.html

Debora

 

WOW, Debora... a search for "bent plywood" yields some amazing things... like this...
1951 - Andre Bloc.

 

Nope not there....I had seen all their photos because they were in Google images....nothing there.