Rare set of four Michael Thonet theater chairs/armchairs, production from 1870. Intact.

Rare set of four Michael Thonet theater chairs/armchairs from the 1870 production. Intact. Made of steam-bent beechwood. With a fire stamp and original label from the manufacturer. Max height 76, seat height 46, max width 41, max depth 50. Steam-bent beechwood, stained and natural. French polished. Intact objects with fine French polish. Stamp and label of the manufacturer. Vienna approx. 1870. History of the prestigious Thonet manufacturer. In the years around 1830, Thonet conducted his experiments with veneer strips softened in boiling glue before inventing "bentwood furniture". In 1842, Prince Metternich, impressed by the talent of the Rhenish cabinetmaker, called him to Vienna. Here Michael Thonet dedicated himself, with his sons, to creating parquet floors and furniture for the Liechtenstein Palace and the Schwarzenberg Palace. With the creation of chair no. 4 for the Daum cafe on Kohlmarkt in Vienna, he soon conquered the Vienna cafe scene, laying the foundations for the development of the furniture sector destined for the "community", i.e. public environments. With the revolution of 1848, many people lost their jobs and found other employment in the new Thonet factories, where steam engines were in operation. Success came in 1859, when Michael's sons' company, Gebrüder Thonet, presented chair no. 14 in solid bentwood, the famous "Vienna straw chair" now considered one of the icons of design history. The Thonet brothers quickly understood the need to integrate new trends and technical developments into their work, embracing certain embryonic intuitions. From the beginning, they presented their creations at the industrial and craft exhibitions of the time. The multilingual catalogs of the Gebrüder Thonet company helped to make the products known abroad, which soon became bestsellers. Sales branches were thus born in neighboring countries as well as in more distant ones, developing a distribution network of Thonet furniture all over the world. The development of an innovative technique for bending solid wood (steam-heated), first by boiling the glue, then by moistening it with water vapor generated by an autoclave, and then giving it the desired curvature in metal shapes and making it rigid again with drying in ovens. This latter process was then patented in 1842. Michael Thonet died in Vienna in 1871, and the business was carried on by his sons. The most valuable original Thonet furniture is that made in the "artisanal and design" phase of the full 19th century. The first models made around the middle of the century, first in Boppard, then in Moravia, are objects of reference in the history of design and furniture and of museum importance. The production of the last third of the 19th century retains considerable artistic and collecting interest as the production was still careful, limited in number and with a technique similar to the prototypes. The Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna and the Thonet GmbH museum in Frankenberg, Hesse, possess one of the largest collections of original Thonet chairs. In accordance with the provisions of the New Code of Cultural Heritage, the selling company provides, simultaneously with the sale, a detailed written photographic guarantee of the originality and provenance of the works sold. The data with which the works are described and then contained in the written guarantees are expressed determinations resulting from accurate, in-depth and documented technical/historical/artistic investigations.