just picked up the chair below and am trying to figure out what model Hans Wegner Chair this is. the headrest is like most of the momma bear chairs but the wings and the arms are more like the papa bear. I cannot figure out exactly what I have, although the make and model are that of hans wegner. Such a unique chair. Any advise is appreciated.
Derrick
The answer might lie somewhere in this thread:
http://mobile.designaddict.com/forum/Identification/BMW-Prototype-or-Ear...
If this is as funny as design enthusiasts get, I wouldn't want to be at one of the cocktail parties ;).
This was probably by herman miller. The more aggressive wings are obviously american. I also gave it a whif, and it smells like woodstock. So def. 60s.
Joking aside, let me know if anyone has any ideas on this guy. Once I get past the elitist remarks, I typically get some great advise from this community.
Thanks
You are getting helpful remarks.
Perhaps you interpret them as elitist" remarks because the chair is absolutely not a Wegner, and every other person out there says their Danish chair is a Wegner.
What exactly do you mean by it is the "make and model of Wegner"? The plain English meaning of such a statement might be that it was made by AP Stolen and is, say, model 19 (Wegner's 'Papa Bear' chair), but it is simply not, not is it the Mama Bear. Nor, I imagine, is it marked AP Stolen. Nor is it Wegner. So what do you mean?
To actually make some headway figuring out what it might be, some more photos would be helpful.
Generally one single photo is only of use to identify a piece if it is extremely easy to identify, and should have been identified with a few minutes worth of research on the Internet, which is to say that there probably was no need to ask here. And the photos are most helpful if they show the "ugly" details that nobody really likes to show when they are trying to sell a chair.
Cdsilva: nice photo of the knockoff round chairs. I wish they actually showed the details of the various knockoffs. It would be rather interesting. I would most especially like to know if any were made in Denmark. It is my experience that the Danes really did not do knockoffs, at least not of the sort that were meant to look like the same design except to an educated eye.
For instance the Svend Skipper chair has a very strong, perhaps over strong, influence from the Papa Bear, but it is also clearly a different design, even to an uneducated eye. In other words it isn't a knockoff in the same way as those "Round Chairs" in the photo that are not distinguishable from the real one at that size. In fact some of those Round Chairs are probably not recognizable as knockoffs until you flip them over and see blocks in the corners of the apron.
Here's a few more shots from the front sides and back. The legs are solid teak and I have yet to see the back of the wings fold over the edge. It's not stamped at all unfortunately :[. it is being shipped to me so I don't have the item to take pictures from underneath or the stitching but this is what I could get my hands on when it comes to photos. Maybe these can help, otherwise i might need to wait to find out more.
Thanks everyone.
Derrick
Derrick, you said that the "quality is outstanding"---have you seen it in person? The upholstery looks kind of awful, in my opinion. It was most certainly redone and there is too much padding on nearly every surface. In addition, the padding is lumpy--probably cotton batting, which yes, does tend to be lumpy if you don't know how to deal with it. And if you use a thin fabric, like this stuff appears to be, the texture of the cotton batting really shows through.
That twee little head pillow looks like an invention of the upholsterer. It looks pretty much flat, so I don't know what kind of comfort it adds, and the huge silky drapery tie-back tassel in back probably hangs by a silky rope-style cord, also used for drapery tie-backs. The top seam of the pillow is very puckered; whoever made it didn't clip the curve nearly enough.
The chair's seams are also kind of puckery. The seat deck is so overpadded around the edges that the seat cushion looks a size or two too small. And last---that square profile cuff-thing at the top of the legs (which I agree don't look definitively teak--maybe maple?)---I have seen that before but I don't believe on anything made in Denmark.
Where did you get this? Were you going by a written description only?
I think you can improve the look of it a lot by getting it reupholstered professionally in a good quality solid color wool, and tell the guy you want it about half as fat as it is now. Or less, maybe. I don't know if you would get your money out of it if you plan to sell it someday, even with a really bang-up upholstery job. But if you really love it and want to keep it, it might be worth it to you.
What is going on at the top of the rear legs. Something seems very wrong there.
Unfortunately there must be something about this style of chair, the wingback chair, that makes many upholsterers want to overstuff it beyond recognition. One might think that a reasonably valuable chair like a Papa Bear would not need to Ind ego the embarrassment of overstuffing, but unfortunately most of them that I see have been overstuffed in their last reupholstery also.
Anyway, we still need more and better photos to say anything more than "darkish brownish wood" as Gropius says.
I would start with some sharp close-ups of the wood, leg and armrest. The top of rear leg. And the underside. And the armrest. (Basically anywhere that might still show something original).
Upholsterers who do conventional and traditional furniture tend to add too much padding to all Danish Modern furniture! It's how they roll. And I bet a fair number of ignorant furniture owners are fine with it. It's the norm for most people!
It just occurred to me that the block shape at the top of the back legs is supposed to be hidden by the upholstery. That's where I've seen it before--under fabric that I've stripped off!
I think the rails are supposed to be tenoned into these block-shaped tops of the legs. Now I'm thinking the manufacturer just used their stock of regular tapered legs made to be used in a non-slanted way, and adapted them to be slanted rear legs. I cannot think of any other reason why those block-shaped top ends would be showing in that half-hacked-off way, yet the front legs have no such detail.
And now I'm thinking they just took their standard wing chair frame and modified the top of the arms a bit and did the minimum necessary to give it modern tapered legs rather than cabriole style legs. Boom. Done. Papa Bear chair. Sorta. (Not really.)
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