Sunday, February 24, 2008

Thonet Chair Project

thonet2-clippedweb


I have a pair of great bentwood Thonet chairs. The chairs were free — thanks mom. I intend to remove the original varnish, which is quite worn and chipping, sand and re-finish.

I am also going to have the seat and back pieces reupholstered, professionally. I am looking for any information on this chair model. Anyone out there know its name?

thonet1-clippedweb

I have seen similar pieces for sale; there is a set of four on Ebay right now with a starting bid of $475. None of the others I have seen have the metal studs on the back that mine do. It sure looks like original factory work to me. I’m trying to decide weather to replace the studs when I have them reupholstered. Anyone have a clue as to the studs being original?

They both have the original tags on the bottom from the company and the only date is 1928 — if that helps at all. I can’t imagine they are that old.

thonet-sanded-web

Here is a sample of the wood with the varnish removed. I’ll update the project as soon as the weather permits me to do some additional work.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

joe atkinson design probably mid 50's

Anonymous said...

Here is the patent page for that chair:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=hnlyAAAAEBAJ&dq=thonet+chair&num=30

Hope that helps provide more information. (I looked up "Thonet Chair".)

-TSA

Unknown said...

Wow that’s amazing I have looked it up many times but never come across that page.

Thanks looks like the chair is from 1953.