found a france&son armchair in the trash! i'm in shock.  

That is a great find-congrats...
That is a great find-congrats. Also, that's the way to tell a story! Well done on all fronts.

Looks the same or very...
Looks the same or very similar?
http://www.deconet.com/decopedia/object/112149/Lounge_Chair_by_Grete_Jalk

It is a model 164 by Arne Vodder.
Lovely chairs, very comfortable.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33820677@N08/4694644520/

thanks, guys!
woke up this morning to the chair in our living room and we're still just shaking our heads in disbelieve.
craziest thing to happen, really. 🙂
thanks for the info everyone. i had actually found those two links in my research and if the info on the grete jalk chair is correct (how reliable are those sources?), then what we have is a grete jalk chair.
the one by arne vodder really is strikingly similar, but the cushions are different and ours doesn't have screws on the sides of the frame. it really looks exactly like the one from the first link! well, it's not as shiney. but we're gonna figure out how to give the wood and leather some love today.
did i mention that i'm excited??
now we can get rid ouf our (vintage) ikea poang, which we were only hanging onto because i needed something with armrests for nursing. yes, our found chair even comes with armrests! the universe was really looking out for us.

I think that the Arne Vodder...
I think that the Arne Vodder 164 chair suggested by H.Moon is the best match for your chair, even though the cushions have some different details. The Grete Jalk chair shown at Decopedia has different arms than yours, and which more closely resemble those on other Grete Jalk chairs. I also believe that France & Son did some different things with their construction as time went by, using hex bolts during later periods. Hex bolts are also found on Grete Jalk chairs at some point. Ultimately though, given the very close similarity that exists between the two chairs, one might very well wonder what the deal was, or how two different attributions came to be given to two chairs that are nearly identical, and made by the same firm. I am just speculating blindly, but it could be that France & Son made one chair to go with the other Grete Jalk chairs and sofas they were selling, and another version that was meant to be mated with their line of Arne Vodder furniture. I really have no idea though, and maybe someone else can shed some light. Decopedia also has a listing for the Vodder 164 chair.
http://www.deconet.com/decopedia/object/27424/Easy_chair_by_Arne_Vodder

Not Grete Jalk
Your chair is definitely Arne Vodder, I have had a few of these chairs in the past.
I have seen this chair incorrectly attributed to Grete Jalk in a few places.
All of the chairs I have owned have had Allen key [Hex bolts] holding the frame, yours is a variant without.
I would not use the cushions as a reference for identification, three buttons, six buttons whatever....it is all in the frame. If the cushions are original they should be sprung inside like a mattress.
I have an old France & Son catalogue with this design listed as Vodder, I would post an image but I seem to be unable to post images direct to DA from my Flickr account anymore, does anyone else have this problem?
I also have the matching footstool for this chair at the moment, not advertising !!!
Enjoy your chair, a great score.

hmmm...
do you think it's possible that all these "two different chairs" are really all one and the same?
like maybe at some point the grete jalk info got out and people caught onto it and now some believe they have a GJ even though they're all AV?
because previous poster is right, it does seem very odd that a manufacturer would produce almost the exact same chair "designed" by two different designers.
very curious about this...
either way though, it's soooooooo darn gorgeous! and i'm in love with the leather cushions.

perhaps....
it was a collaboration...
Either way...great find...we will all be expecting a map to this magic dumpster.We can all go out there, Goonies style.
Ill even do the "truffle shuffle" if need be.

well done on the chair
you and your husband are both artists, do you have websites?

Whatever the case, I am prett...
Whatever the case, I am pretty confident that the chair identified on Decopedia as a Grete Jalk chair does have different arms than your chair, and the arms also match the style of arm used on Grete Jalk's most well known series of arm chair. The arms have a characteristic little bump at the back inside edge (indicated with the red arrow in the image below), and a pretty distinct crescent shape.

Looks like the back legs on...
Looks like the back legs on the GJ chair have more of a pitch than the ones on the dumpster chair.
Great find either way! I would be ecstatic to stumble on something like that in the trash!

I think the chair listed on Decopedia as Grete Jalk is an in house France & Son design largely borrowed from the Vodder chair with slight alterations.
France & Son have also done this with a Grete Jalk design, the chair is incredibly similar to one of Jalks chairs and is sold the world over by dealers as a Grete Jalk design when in fact it is an in house France & Son design.

It wouldn't surprise me if a...
It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of France & Son's in-house designs were motivated by customer requests. In the case of the in-house design for the "Grete Jalk" chairs and sofas with the upholstered arms, it could have been a response to customers who wanted wood frame furniture with some padding on the arms, and so France & Son obliged them. It also would not surprise me if France & Son put Grete Jalk style arms on the Vodder 164 recliner so that it would mate better with the popular line of Grete Jalk chairs and sofas that France & Son were selling, and appeal to those who wanted matching sets that included a recliner.
All if this makes me wonder if Vodder was the inspiration for the transition that Jalk's lounge chairs/sofas made from having numerous narrow slats in the back of the chairs and sofas, to having the wide slats that later versions had. Perhaps France & Son liked the look of the two wide slats in Vodder's 164 design, and asked Jalk to alter her chairs and sofas to match, or, perhaps France & Son just made the change on their own. I am again blindly speculating of course, and it is probably yet another one of those trivial questions that can never be answered now that so many of the principles are deceased.

Thanks for the images tchp,
Those are the chairs I was referring to.
The middle image chair is the original Grete Jalk design and the pair below on your post are what I believe to be the France & Son designs.

Thanks for that info, as I gu...
Thanks for that info, as I guess all this time I had assumed that the design contribution of France & Son had only been the upholstery on the arms of the Grete Jalk chair/sofa, and it had not occurred to me that the wide slat interpretation was an in-house France & Son contribution as well.