Dining Chair
c. 1870
Medium
Walnut and beech with modern velvet upholstery
Dimensions
89.2 × 46.4 × 61 cm (35 1/8 × 18 1/4 × 24 in.)
Classification
chair
Department
Applied Arts of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
230955
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
While architect and interior designer Theophil Hansen incorporated classical elements into his furniture designs, he also embraced contemporary advances in manufacturing, including the use of steam to bend solid and laminated wood, as seen in the curved forms of this chair’s back. Laminated bentwood furniture is most closely associated with the Viennese firm Gebrüder Thonet, the first manufacturers to produce bentwood on an industrial scale. When Thonet’s patent expired in 1869, however, others...