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billy_the_kid
(@billy_the_kid)
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Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 18
06/01/2018 12:03 pm  

So.

We just inherit a old house, it was from my fathers side, his great-great father. As we know, he was a industrialist.

I do not know a lot about chairs, just it was sad that chairs were bought in 1920-1930s in Germany.

And pretty much that is all i know. There was also some small table with them, but we do not know where it is.

And help is going to be great.
20180105102708.jpg20180105102714.jpg<img class="wpforoimg" src=" http://d1t1u890k7d3ys.cloudfront.net/cdn/farfuture/cecKEM2uIH0tLUM


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(@deleted)
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Joined: 14 years ago
Posts: 968
06/01/2018 5:17 pm  

The cantilever chair with arms could be a variant of the MR chair designed by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe in 1926 & produced by Josef Mueller/Berliner Metall-Guwerbe.

If you can accurately trace the origins of your chair to any of those names, then you can confirm that it is a period original MR chair.

The MR chair was originally armless (arms were added later) with painted tube frames (later nickel/chrome) & with a full cane seat painted/stained black. Later versions had leather like your chair which has a separate seat & back. There are also versions attributed to Thonet.

I do not recognize the other chairs, but many designers/manufacturers at the time produced variations of the cantilever tube chairs pioneered by Marcel Breuer while at Bauhaus in the 1920s. I cannot confirm but ithey kind of look like a Breuer design.

https://goo.gl/images/NczV3z


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billy_the_kid
(@billy_the_kid)
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Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 18
06/01/2018 6:36 pm  

Thnx very much.

Seats on chairs are not leather, they are wicker. I will try to find out if there is some paperwork, and in a few days I will transport chairs to my home so I can examine they closely.

Cheers


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(@deleted)
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Joined: 14 years ago
Posts: 968
06/01/2018 10:27 pm  

I meant to say the configuration of your chair with a separate seat & back, not the material.

MR by Thonet with Mies...

https://goo.gl/images/EHUw2s


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tktoo
(@tktoo)
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Posts: 2219
06/01/2018 11:24 pm  

What I find interesting is that we see four different wicker/tubular steel frame chairs all of the same apparent vintage still together in the same family since new. I'd be curious to know what Industry the original owner was involved in.


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(@deleted)
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Posts: 968
07/01/2018 12:16 am  

I can only imagine an avant garde industrialist who embraced & considered modernism as progressive & exciting. The opposite of Emily Post who described Breuer's (& others) furniture designs at the time as "deathlike" with no historical/ traditional reference in terms of aesthetics & construction.

Look around the house closely, there might also be a Josef Albers, a Wassily Kandinsky (or anyone of the Bauhaus names) lurking in there somewhere.


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tktoo
(@tktoo)
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Posts: 2219
07/01/2018 5:45 am  

"I'll take one of each"?

Yes, I'd call that approach "progressive".


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billy_the_kid
(@billy_the_kid)
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Joined: 9 years ago
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07/01/2018 11:08 am  

Tomorrow I arranged a talk with one of the great uncles form my fathers side, he is almost 80, and I hope he will know something more about chairs.

The original owner of the chairs had a brickyard in the second half of 19 century, after that he owned a electric company (local). He was also a wine and spirit connoisseur, we still have some 1930s wine and spirits in that old house.

What I found also was a lot of modernist magazines and furniture catalogues, but the house itself was decorated in art deco style.

Some members of the family were also one of the first admirals and kings adjutants, but those are some (very) distant cousins.

I should point out that all of the chairs including the missing table were bought as a set at the time.


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tktoo
(@tktoo)
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Posts: 2219
07/01/2018 6:28 pm  

Fascinating. Design addict of yesteryear.


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billy_the_kid
(@billy_the_kid)
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Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 18
08/01/2018 5:34 pm  

Today I went to a wine celler ... there was some french plastic orange chairs 10 of them, and then there was this...


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(@deleted)
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08/01/2018 6:09 pm  

B10 table by Breuer for Thonet

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/4141

https://www.moma.org/artists/769?locale=en

And these images give you an idea how these look like in their natural habitat in the 1920s & 30s.


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(@deleted)
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08/01/2018 6:12 pm  

I was hoping this is what you will find in your relatives house...the Sonia Delaunay car from the roaring twenties.


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billy_the_kid
(@billy_the_kid)
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Posts: 18
08/01/2018 6:57 pm  

Do not have that car. But the same man (industrialist) did have a 1938 BMW witch was first taken by ustasha movement (similar to nazis in Germany) and after that by partizan forces (police). The car was never returned. Today we only have a documentation and service manual.


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(@deleted)
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Posts: 968
08/01/2018 9:13 pm  

billy_the_kid, if that 1938 BMW could be traced to still exist today, there's a possibility that it can be retrieved/returned to the heirs in the absence of the original owner, like that Gustav Klimt painting


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billy_the_kid
(@billy_the_kid)
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Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 18
10/01/2018 3:09 pm  

In my country that does not work in described way, and as we know the car is no more.

Question. The B10 table has a screws around witch hold metal and wooden part together. On the net B10 tables do not have screws, is that OK - or ?


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