Help identifying very unusual mid-century leather and chrome cantilevered desk/club chair  

It looks nothing like anything Wegner designed really, and not really knowing much about Baughman, but from what I've seen: very little of what he designed. Plus if you're in London, sarahfromlondon, and this chair is probably from Germany, then Baughman is just not even on the radar!

Any metal tubular cantilever design is more likely to be from the continent and plenty of it is widely undocumented. I'd go with searching for Dutch tubular cantilever chairs first, but I really don't know. Dutch is a gut feeling. And I think it looks similar to a De Sede design I can't recall a model number for but the one I am thinking of definitely isn't tubular, in fact I don't know if De Sede did any tubular metal chairs/sofas.

Hi Kyle

You are a genius 🙂 It does indeed appear to be designed by Robert Haussmann for De Sede. See pics. There are however a few differences. The cantilever chrome in my chair is tubular as opposed to square, and goes straight down at a right angle rather than towards the back at 30 degrees. Also the arms have a horizontal seam one third down from the fin/wing and seams around the arms. They're hard to see in the pics as the chair is black, but I can't see any evidence of these in the brown ones which have piping. Perhaps my chair is a copy. It's strange that this appears to be the only thing like it. It is reminiscent of other Haussmann designs and even some of the current stuff produced by De Sede (shape, width of arms, type and position of seams). I'm going to make contact with them and see if they can shed any more light.

Regards

Sarah

As I said, I don't think its Desede but it was that design it reminded me of. There were some being sold near me for an extortionate price about a year ago. I don't know the designers at De Sede, so I dont know Robert Haussmann.

It was just a direction to search in. Not an identification!

I suspect its some Dutch design still. Thats my guess.

Of course, I'm not holding you to any definitive identification 🙂 It's just great to have a lead. I think Robert Haussmann is long gone, but someone at De Sede might be able to help. I'm sure they have an archive.

Did you ever find out about that sofa you saw on eBay?

Regards

Sarah

Robert Haussmann is still alive at 86.

I'm very happy to hear that.

Regards

Sarah