Antique Kids Rocking Chair

Antique, new and vintage bentwood furniture has become very popular in interiors over the years. Today bentwood chairs, tables, sofas and pendants are receiving striking modern interpretations from makers like Thonet, which are being carried on by the next generation.

Bentwood furniture dates as far back as the Middle Ages, but it is the 19th-century German-Austrian cabinetmaker Michael Thonet who is most often associated with this now-classic technique. Thonet in 1856 patented a method for bending solid wood through the use of steam, and from there the bentwood look skyrocketed to furniture fame. Bentwood was embraced by design greats ranging from Josef Hoffmann to Gio Ponti, and Adolf Loos to Alvar Aalto for its versatility, timelessness and simple elegance.

In the Czech Republic — home to a range of talented but unsung mid-century modern and Art Deco designers — the company TON held a bentwood furniture exhibition in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat in recent years. TON manufactures their bentwood furniture in the same workshops where Michael Thonet set up his operations in the 1800s.

Sophisticated bentwood furniture designs include Alvar Aalto’s cantilever lounge chairs, Italian designer Luigi Crassevig’s 1970s rocking chairs — which feature cane seats — curvaceous hanging lamps and other lighting by Spanish architect José Antonio Coderch and lots more.

Find a collection of antique, new and vintage bentwood furniture on 1stDibs.

The phrase “rocking chair” didn’t find its way into the dictionary until the mid-18th century. While most of the sitting furniture that we use in our homes originated in either England or France, the iconic rocking chair is a quintessentially American piece of furniture.

A Philadelphia cabinetmaker’s bill for a proto-rocking chair issued in 1742, which identified the seat as a “Nurse Chair with rockers,” is the earliest surviving evidence of this design’s humble beginnings. The nurse chair was a low side chair intended for nursing women, so giving it a soothing rocking motion made sense. Rocking chairs, which saw a curved slat affixed to the chairs’ feet so that they could be literally rocked, quickly gained popularity across the United States, garnering a reputation as a seat that everyone could love. They offered casual comfort without the expensive fabrics and upholstery that put armchairs out of many families’ budgets.

Rocking chairs are unique in that they don’t just offer a place to rest — they offer an opportunity to reminisce. The presence of one of these classic pieces stirs up our penchant for nostalgia and has the power to transform a space. They easily introduce a simple country feel to the city or bring the peaceful rhythm of a porch swing into a sheltered sunroom. Although craftsmen took to painting and stenciling varieties of the chairs that emerged in New England during the 19th century, the most traditional rocking chairs are generally unadorned seats constructed with time-tested materials like wood and metal. As such, a minimalist vintage rocking chair can be ushered into any corner of your home without significantly disrupting your existing decor scheme or the room’s color palette.

In the decades since the first rocker, top designers have made the piece their own. Viennese chair maker Michael Thonet produced a series of rockers in the middle of the 19th century in which the different curved steam-bent wood parts were integrated into fluid, sinuous wholes. Mid-century modernists Charles and Ray Eames added wooden rockers to their famous plastic shell armchair, while Danish designer Frank Reenskaug opted for teak and polished beech, introducing pops of color with small cushions (a precursor to the bold works that would follow in the 1970s and 1980s).

No matter your personal style, let 1stDibs pair you with your perfect seat. Deck out your porch, patio or parlor — browse the vintage, new and antique rocking chairs in our vast collection today.