Bentwood Magazine Racks and Stands

Lovely vintage birch bentwood magazine rack in the style of Alvar Aalto and Marcel Breuer's bentwood furniture. Featuring clean modernist U-shap...

A wonderful and rare Thonet Vienna Art Nouveau Bentwood Canterbury, circa 1910 in date. This model was created before the year 1904 by the Austrian Manufactory Thonet Brothers. It features five beech wooden struttings which are amazingly bent in the finest Thonet manner. Bibliography: Illustrated Catalogue of Michael Thonet, Vienna 1904, page 87, Condition: In really excellent condition, please see photos for confirmation. Dimensions in cm: Height 55 x Width 42 x Depth 51 Dimensions in inches: Height 1 foot, 10 inches x Width 1 foot, 4 inches x Depth 1 foot, 8 inches Michael Thonet (2 July 1796, Boppard – 3 March 1871, Vienna) was a German-Austrian cabinet maker, known for the invention of bentwood furniture. Thonet was the son of the master tanner Franz Anton Thonet of Boppard. Following a carpenter's apprenticeship, Thonet set himself up as an independent cabinetmaker in 1819. A year later, he married Anna Grahs, with whom he had seven sons and six daughters. Only five of the sons, however, survived early childhood. In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats. His first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl (Boppard layerwood chair) in 1836. Thonet gained substantial independence by acquiring the Michelsmühle, the glue factory that made the glue for this process, in 1837. However, his attempts to patent the technology failed in Germany as well as in Great Britain, France and Russia Thonet's essential breakthrough was his success in having light, strong wood bent into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design entirely novel, elegant, lightweight, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly to fashion – a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past – and whose aesthetic and functional appeal remains to this day. At the Koblenz trade fair of 1841, Thonet met Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who was enthusiastic about Thonet's furniture and invited him to the Vienna court. In the next year, Thonet was able to present his furniture, and his chairs in particular, to the Imperial Family. As the Boppard establishment got into financial difficulties, Thonet sold it and emigrated to Vienna with his family. There, he worked with his sons on the interior decoration of the Stadtpalais Liechtenstein for the Carl Leistler establishment. In 1849, he again opened his own shop together with his four sons. A few years later, in 1853, he transferred the company to his sons under the name Gebrüder Thonet. In 1850 he produced his Nr. 1 chair. The Great Exhibition in London 1851 saw him receive the bronze medal for his Vienna bentwood chairs. This was his international breakthrough. At the next World's Fair, Exposition Universelle in Paris 1855, he was awarded the silver medal as he continued to improve his production methods. In 1856 he was able to open up a new factory in Korycany, Moravia. The 1859 chair Nr. 14 – better known as Konsumstuhl Nr. 14, coffee shop chair no. 14 – is still called the "chair of chairs" with some 50 million produced and still in production today. The innovative bending technique allowed for the industrial production of a chair for the first time ever. What was revolutionary about the former no.14, which is today's no. 214, was the fact that it could be disassembled into a few components and thus produced in work-sharing processes. The chair could be exported to all nations of the world in simple, space saving packages: 36 disassembled chairs could fit into a one cubic meter box. It yielded a gold medal for Thonet's enterprise at the 1867 Paris World's Fair. At the time, the chair no. 14 cleared the way for Thonet to become a global company. Numerous pieces of bentwood furniture followed. Some models also became icons of design history: the rocking chair no. 1 from 1860, later on in the 19th century the successful models no. 18 and no. 56, around 1900 the elegant no. 209 with its curved armrests, which Le Corbusier adored, and in 1904 the art nouveau armchair 247 by Otto Wagner, the so-called postal savings bank chair...

Elegant Thonet Newspaper Rack, catalogue No. 33, from Austria circa 1905. Made of Fine bentwood and trimmed to a beautiful nut wood look, this rack co...

High-quality handwork, shapely bentwood, stained mahogany Manufactured by Thonet Brothers, Vienna, around 1900 - original Thonet sticker part on the underside Model number 33 ...

Original state with a pleasant patine of age, perfectly cleaned and re-polished with shelack finish.

Original state with a pleasant patine of age.

Timeless bentwood magazine/ newspaper rack from the late Art Nouveau period in Vienna/ Austria around 1920. Made of fine bentwood and trimmed to a beautiful nut wood look, this uniqu...

Listed in the Michael Thonet catalogue between 1890-1919, this beech bentwood magazine rack was made in Austria, has an ebonized finish and retains most of the original paper label o...

Original state with a pleasant patine of age, perfectly cleaned and re-polished with shellac polish.

Original state. Exceptional original gilt Art Nouveau décor.

Thonet Vienna most elegant music or newspaper / magazine rack (= for holding newspapers or music sheets), circa 1900. Model number 33 This model was created before the year 1904 ...

Late 19th century large bentwood and brass magazine rack. Two sections divided by tall center panel. Lots of decorative details - one of the brass fittings is stamped with Patent Feb...