Question about authenticity of my Wassily chairs  

Hi. If I am not wrong the chairs produced by Gavina should have a Marcel Breuer signature somwhere on the leather of the backrest.

end caps and bolt closeups.

Gavina, Knoll and other correct Wassily versions by others will have polished welded ends, no end caps. Not legit versions and inferior copies will always have end caps even if they are marked with a made in Italy label. The same applies for a real Cesca arm and side chairs.

Those labels seem suspicious.

Hi

It appears that the hex bolts protrude a smidgen, should be flush..and the chrome "sled" lacks a middle seam. And the christmas tree looks fake.

Best,

Aunt Mark

ps. I'm usually wrong.

Any Wassily chair made from the 1960s onwards are "authentic" reissues and reproductions like the legit versions produced by Gavina, Knoll and others approved by Breuer.

The real authentic Wassily chairs highly desired by collectors and museums are the originals produced at the Bauhaus workshop, the early mass produced examples made by Thonet, Standard Mobel and others made before WW2. Most of these did not use leather slings but heavy canvas or heavy canvas soaked in oil called eisengarn (similar to the material used in period convertible car roof).

The bolts are mostly flush; any protrusions might be attributed to the previous owner taking the chair in the first pic to an upholstery shop who did a very poor job restitching some of the seams.

I am including a close up (sorry about the less-than-stellar telephone pic) as well as a pic of the inside of one of the seats (the stitching came undone and there's a very thin pressboard-type material between the leather layers, says Pirelli on it)

There IS a seam in the middle of the sides on the bottom, just didn't show up in the first pic. Yes, the Christmas tree is fake, LOL

Hi.

I just don't think that my vintage Knoll Wassily chairs have any pressboard in the seats. To my blind eye, it is merely 2 thick pieces of leather hugging each other. Now the bolts and end caps look fine on your chair. The label is puzzling, and Debbie Reynolds is still dead. I say weigh 'em and get out a tape measure (pencil and paper) and some decent vodka.

Bye,

Aunt Mark