Help me with my chair, please

No, no, it's not that I'm a doddering old fool ... well, but I don't need help getting seated. Quite good at sitting, in fact. Anyway, as I've said before, I am more of a sheetmetal guy than a wood guy, not much into furniture. But ...

Showing the house to some prospective buyers today, they were much interested in this little chair that I've had for awhile. It belonged to my late stepfather, Bill Davies

Hello Marshall

I know little (nothing) about furniture, but it's darling! Not only that, you can play Chinese checkers on it!

Mari- ++++++++++++ Lost our marbles- off our rocker antiques

True, though Thonet factories also existed in Germany and Russia.

It doesn't look like a Thonet piece.

I was aware that a salon existed in Moscow, didn't know there was an actual factory in Russia, perhaps this was after his death when his sons took over the production and expanded? I've never had a piece stamped 'Russia' have you? Where precisely was the Russian factory and when was it in existence, do you have that info? ... just curious.

There were of course factories in Hungary and Moravia (later Czechoslovakia and subsequently of the Czech Republic). I suppose the company could still exist today in one form or another. Most of what I see (and have handled over the years) of Thonet is stamped Vienna or Hungary, and sometimes pieces stamped Poland but these Polish pieces are not of the quality of the Vienna factory, so I'm not sure these pieces stamped Poland were in fact the production of Thonet at all. They are usually very late, well into this century, at least the examples I've handled.

Anyway, over here (in my area) bentwood furniture, be it genuine Thonet or the later copies, is not as popular as once it was. I certainly was obtaining more money for bentwood 10 years ago than I can manage today, maybe England is different?

I had one of those big curly rockers not so very long ago, second half of the 19thC. I had a devil of a job to sell it, traded it onto another dealer in the end, I've never really care for those big curly rockers.

Nothing like Thonet, think I already said that? .. god old age. ;>

Best to sit corrected, I think. I actually use my Thonet cafe chairs in front of my various computers. Not all that comfortable but serviceable.

Actually I think his sons took over the business quite a while before his death. But you're right, the expansion was the second generation. I have never had a Russian-stamped Thonet piece. Mine say 'Wien'.

Wasn't there a 70's craze for bentwood furniture? It'll cycle back 'round again. Stock up now. half a -> Look at when Lloyd Loom was hot. Or maybe it still is.

We see lots of cheap imitations, not much of the real thing. I would love one of the old elaborate Thonet settees but I've never seen one here.

Take your pick.

If you are implying that Marshall's chair is Thonet or indeed a Thonet copy or in the Thonet style.

There may have been a Thonet factory in France at the turn of the century.

On a personal note the lion's share that I've come across over the years have been stamped 'Vienna' but wouldn't as a rule be as late as turn of the century, I find the quality severely late from the late 1890s onwards. I believe, after the mid 1850s he (Michael Thonet) incorporated with his sons, renaming his firm Gebrüder Thonet. After his death, the sons carried on and expanded further into the export market.

I have a reference that claims ... 'By 1870 his Viennese firm was producing furniture in hitherto unheard-of quantities

... do I stand corrected, or what?

Yea ... 1850s they incorporated, expansion was big after his death.

Wien? ... well that would be Austrian ... yea?

Those elaborate Thonet pieces do turn up. Christie's and the rest seem to get good money, I don't. Maybe it's just me. At one time, during the BIG hype over here, I (we all) shipped loads of this Thonet stuff at really incredible pieces considering most of it was/is shite, the imitator shite sold as well. As for single hoop-back café chairs or even sets, I just can't give them away these days. The stuff is now reproduced by the bucket load, either buy it polished or ITW (in the bare wood) for painting, no shaky legs, missing bolts (yea bolts not blots) and above all **no wood-worm** which I find a big problem in bentwood furniture. The folk that buy this stuff, seem to prefer to buy the new stuff at real cheap prices .... who can blame them ... eh?

Hi Marshall, just had a minute to look at your chair, I doubt if it's pine, probably birch, but it's hard to tell from this distance ;~)). Chairs with plywood seats of this type first appear in this country about 1870, some of these seats were actually replacements for the original cane seats ( Clue for the Newbies, always look under the seat for the old holes for the original cane). Gardener & Company of New York was one of the first companies to patent the formed pierced plywood seats in 1872, although by the 1880's several companies were selling their own versions. Your chair is one of the early ones, pre 1880 and it's a keeper.

Hi, gang, and thanks to all for your help.

Incidentally, a number of you told me to keep the chair, and I never meant to imply that I'd think of selling it. It was Bill's, and it stays with us. Plenty of other people's heirlooms to turn a buck on. )

Especially, though, I want to thank Judy Cason, who went to the trouble of finding and emailing me a picture from 'Victorian Furniture, Book 2,' by McNerney. The chair and the pattern in the plywood is identical, except that mine has small arms, and is, I believe, made of pine rather than walnut (although it might be birch, as Mike suggested).

Also, it wouldn't have been knocked down as a 'flat pack,' because the joinery is done with pegs, and there is a permanence about the assembly. That also belies Fayette's thought that it was converted with a newer seat at some point (as does the picture in the book).

Here again is my chair, in case you missed it first time around:
http://www.mindspring.com/~carguy323/rocker.jpg

And here is the photo from the book. Funny that both pictures show the chair on a little oval rug.
http://www.mindspring.com/~carguy323/chair.jpg

Again, thanks to all. I'll just put the chair back where it was, and put Bill's turn-of-the-century stuffed bulldog back in its place of honor on the seat.