Wassily Chair Model B3 in Black Leather by Marcel Breuer, Italy, 1925
About the Item
- Creator:Marcel Breuer (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 28 in (71.12 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)Depth: 27 in (68.58 cm)Seat Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1925
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use. Excellent vintage condition.
- Seller Location:Belmont, MA
- Reference Number:
Wassily Lounge Chair
Inspired by bicycle handlebars, the Wassily chair is one of Marcel Breuer’s (1902–81) greatest achievements. Even though the tubular metal chair looked like an artifact from the future when the Hungarian-American designer and architect conceived it in 1925, Breuer could not have foreseen the significant impact that this would have on modern design.
From 1920–28, Breuer studied and then taught at the Bauhaus school of design, where he found a kindred spirit in Walter Gropius, who invited Breuer back as junior master of the carpentry workshop. After less than a year in his new role, Breuer produced his revolutionary chair, which is among the first furniture designs to feature bent tubular steel.
Breuer called the Wassily his “most extreme work” because the pared-down design didn’t look comfortable. It’s true: Take an everyday club chair — the Wassily’s technical name was the model B3 club chair — and toss the cushions and you’d have something like Breuer’s design. The lightweight and mass-produced tubular-steel handlebars of the maker’s bicycle made him wonder if he could achieve something similar with bent-steel furniture.
The resulting mid-1920s-era chair, the seat of which was made of a durable canvas developed by Bauhaus student Margaretha Reichardt, was named the Wassily after painter and fellow Bauhaus colleague Vasily “Wassily” Kandinsky expressed admiration for the piece. Today, Knoll manufactures the Wassily chair.
Marcel Breuer
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld.
In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair.
Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Acton, MA
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
- Post-Modern Italian Chaise Lounge Chair in Faux Black Leather, 1980sLocated in Belmont, MAPost-modern chaise longue chair Italian design, circa 1980s, curved construction in black lacquered metal and black leather upholstery.Category
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chaise Longues
MaterialsMetal
- Gondola Slipper Chairs 'Model 1053' in Mahogany by Harvey ProbberBy Harvey ProbberLocated in Belmont, MAPair of Mid-Century Modern 1950s gondola slipper chairs with a graceful mahogany frame and splayed rear legs designed by Harvey Probber, American. Chairs have sturdy mahogany frames ...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMahogany
- Gondola Slipper Chairs 'Model 1053' in Mahogany by Harvey ProbberBy Harvey ProbberLocated in Belmont, MAPair of Mid-Century Modern 1950s gondola slipper chairs with a graceful mahogany frame and splayed rear legs designed by Harvey Probber, American. Chairs have sturdy mahogany frames ...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMahogany
- Brazilian Mid-Century Modern Armchair/Ottoman by Percival Lafer in Suede LeatherBy Percival LaferLocated in Belmont, MAPercival Lafer (Brazilian, b. 1936) Lounge Chair and Ottoman, Brazil, c. 1965, rosewood frames with leather upholstery, chair, foil Design Lafer label and remains to a paper label, h...Category
Vintage 1960s Brazilian Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSuede, Rosewood
- Postmodern Italian Chaise Lounge Chair, 1980sLocated in Belmont, MAPostmodern chaise longue chair Italian design, circa 1980s, curved construction in black lacquered metal and black leather upholstery.Category
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chaise Longues
MaterialsMetal
- Danish Modern Rosewood Lounge Chair by Søren Ladefoged for SL MoblerBy Alf Svensson, Fritz HansenLocated in Belmont, MADesigned by Søren Ladefoged in the 1950s, this Danish lounge chair is constructed using green wool for the seat and back and rosewood as the frame.Category
Mid-20th Century Danish Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsWool, Rosewood
- Marcel Breuer Early Canvas Model B3 "Wassily" Chair, Black EisengarnBy Standard Möbel, Marcel BreuerLocated in SAINT LOUIS, MOThis is an early edition Wassily from Berlin based manufacturer, Standard-Möbel. It exhibits the original black Eisengarn canvas. A truly iconic design, deserving to be in a museum. The model for this chair is the traditional overstuffed club chair...Category
Vintage 1920s German Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Wassily B3 armchair by Marcel Breuer, white leather, Italy 1980sBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Vorst, BEWassily armchair designed by Marcel Breuer in 1929, THE Bauhaus classic. Structure in chromed steel tubes, with upholstery in white leather. Vintage, italian edition from the 1980s...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Marcel Breuer Early Canvas Model B3 "Wassily" Chair, Green EisengarnBy Marcel Breuer, Standard MöbelLocated in SAINT LOUIS, MOThis is an early edition Wassily from Berlin based manufacturer, Standard-Möbel. It exhibits the original army green Eisengarn canvas. A truly iconic design, deserving to be in a museum. The model for this chair is the traditional overstuffed club chair...Category
Vintage 1920s German Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Chrome
- Marcel Breuer Bauhaus Black Leather Model B3 Wassily Armchair, 1973, Set of 3By Marcel Breuer, GavinaLocated in Vicenza, ITSet of three model B3 “Wassily” armchairs, designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925 and produced in Italy in 1973. It features a chrome-plated steel structure and seat and back in black le...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsChrome, Iron
- Marcel Breuer B3 Wassily Chair for Gavina, 1960'sBy Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Los Angeles, CANatural Leather 'Wassily' Chair by Marcel Breuer for Gavina. Originally designed in 1925. This model was produced in Italy for Gavina, 1960's. Beautifully crafted leather and chrome ...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMetal
- Gavina Wassily Chair B3 Vintage Leather White by Marcel Breuer 1 of 2By Gavina, Marcel BreuerLocated in Munich, BavariaThis old Vintage Wassily chair Model B3, in chromed tubular steel and white leather, was designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by Gavina. It's an early edition before 68. It has som...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Bauhaus Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMetal, Chrome