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Montera Chair

Montera Chair in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 19 Georgette Light Grey
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni has a formal lightness that expresses the sensory
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 28 Seppia Dark Grey
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni for Poltrona Frau has a formal lightness that
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 28 Seppia and Saddle Extra Cammello
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni for Poltrona Frau has a formal lightness that
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 51 Panna and Saddle Extra Cammello
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni for Poltrona Frau has a formal lightness that
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 23 Tortora and Saddle Extra Cammello
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni for Poltrona Frau has a formal lightness that
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair Genuine Leather Pelle SC 53 Creta and Saddle Extra Testa di Moro
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni for Poltrona Frau has a formal lightness that
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair Genuine Leather Pelle SC 04 Latte and Saddle Extra Testa di Moro
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni for Poltrona Frau has a formal lightness that
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair with Arms in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 66 India Light Brown
By Roberto Lazzeroni, Poltrona Frau
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair with arms designed by Roberto Lazzeroni has a formal lightness that expresses the
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

Montera Chair with Arms in Genuine Leather Pelle SC 28 Seppia Dark Grey
By Poltrona Frau, Roberto Lazzeroni
Located in New York, NY
The Montera chair with arms designed by Roberto Lazzeroni has a formal lightness that expresses the
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Chairs

Materials

Leather, Ash

1970s Spanish Sculpted Terracotta Chair w/ Bullfighter's Montera Hat & Clothing
Located in Marbella, ES
1970s Spanish sculpted terracotta ceramic chair with bullfighter's "montera" hat and "traje de
Category

Late 20th Century Spanish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Ceramic

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Fifih Bench is a luxury bench upholstered in velvet and wood base. A contemporary design bench is perfect for minimalist and modern interior architecture projects. Materials: Uphols...
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Montera Chair For Sale on 1stDibs

Find many varieties of an authentic montera chair available at 1stDibs. A montera chair — often made from animal skin, ash and hardwood — can elevate any home. There are 1 variations of the antique or vintage montera chair you’re looking for, while we also have 9 modern editions of this piece to choose from as well. Whether you’re looking for an older or newer montera chair, there are earlier versions available from the 20th Century and newer variations made as recently as the 21st Century. Each montera chair bearing modern hallmarks is very popular. Poltrona Frau and Roberto Lazzeroni each produced at least one beautiful montera chair that is worth considering.

How Much is a Montera Chair?

A montera chair can differ in price owing to various characteristics — the average selling price 1stDibs is $2,140, while the lowest priced sells for $1,960 and the highest can go for as much as $2,320.

Poltrona Frau for sale on 1stDibs

If an Italian soldier named Renzo Frau had never traveled to Great Britain and set eyes on a Chesterfield armchair, it is unlikely that legendary handcrafted furniture maker Poltrona Frau and its classic sofas, armchairs and vanities would exist today.

Upon completing his service in the Italian army during the early 1900s, the Sardinian-born Frau worked for faux leather manufacturing company Dermoide Patent in Turin. While at the firm, he was sent to England, where he became enamored with leather Chesterfield armchairs. Intrigued and inspired by their rolled arms and tall, imposing profile, Frau returned to Turin, where he started his own leather-upholstered furniture company, Poltrona Frau, in 1912. He began to import the sumptuous Edwardian seating for the high-end domestic market. 

Frau made slight modifications to the English seat that he’d so admired, and among Poltrona Frau’s first successful designs was an iconic armchair in 1919 appropriately called the Chester. Believed to have been custom-made for Filiberto Ludovico of Savoy, Duke of Pistoia, the Chester reflected the era’s emerging Art Deco style. Frau’s chair was comfortable and functional, and he implemented the traditional upholstery technique capitonné, which refers to stuffing that is buttoned. The Chester featured a pouf and an arm that was possibly included to hold the Duke’s ashtray. The seat’s high-quality craftsmanship and integration of exquisite full-grain leather made it covetable among Italy’s elite.

When Renzo Frau died in 1926, Poltrona Frau was appointed furniture supplier to Italy’s royal family. The company furnished grand hotels, designed the interiors for Expo Turin 1928 and outfitted an Italian transatlantic ocean liner. 

For more than a century, Poltrona Frau has collaborated with hundreds of leading architects and designers from around the world. It issued such iconic mid-century modern pieces as Gio Ponti’s Dezza armchair, the 1960s-era Dilly Dally vanity by Italian designer Luigi Massoni, stackable tubular steel Movie armchairs by Italian architect Mario Marenco and French architect Jean-Marie Massaud’s sleek, angular Kennedee office sofa.

Poltrona Frau has established showrooms all over the world and creates interiors for Italian automotive brands Maserati and Ferrari. The company is owned by Haworth and continues to introduce innovative, handmade home furnishings while occasionally gazing back into time — its Chester line, a modular seating system by Poltrona Frau CEO Nicola Coropulis and Roberto Lazzeroni, is a contemporary interpretation of the founder’s original Chesterfield-style seating.

Find vintage Poltrona Frau club chairs, coffee tables, desks and other furniture on 1stDibs.

A Close Look at modern Furniture

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chaircrafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Finding the Right chairs for You

Chairs are an indispensable component of your home and office. Can you imagine your life without the vintage, new or antique chairs you love?

With the exception of rocking chairs, the majority of the seating in our homes today — Windsor chairs, chaise longues, wingback chairs — originated in either England or France. Art Nouveau chairs, the style of which also originated in those regions, embraced the inherent magnificence of the natural world with decorative flourishes and refined designs that blended both curved and geometric contour lines. While craftsmanship and styles have evolved in the past century, chairs have had a singular significance in our lives, no matter what your favorite chair looks like.

“The chair is the piece of furniture that is closest to human beings,” said Hans Wegner. The revered Danish cabinetmaker and furniture designer was prolific, having designed nearly 500 chairs over the course of his lifetime. His beloved designs include the Wishbone chair, the wingback Papa Bear chair and many more.

Other designers of Scandinavian modernist chairs introduced new dynamics to this staple with sculptural flowing lines, curvaceous shapes and efficient functionality. The Paimio armchair, Swan chair and Panton chair are vintage works of Finnish and Danish seating that left an indelible mark on the history of good furniture design.

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts,” said Ray Eames

Visionary polymaths Ray and Charles Eames experimented with bent plywood and fiberglass with the goal of producing affordable furniture for a mass market. Like other celebrated mid-century modern furniture designers of elegant low-profile furnishings — among them Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Finn Juhl — the Eameses considered ergonomic support, durability and cost, all of which should be top of mind when shopping for the perfect chair. The mid-century years yielded many popular chairs.

The Eameses introduced numerous icons for manufacturer Herman Miller, such as the Eames lounge chair and ottoman, molded plywood dining chairs the DCM and DCW (which can be artfully mismatched around your dining table) and a wealth of other treasured pieces for the home and office. 

A good chair anchors us to a place and can become an object of timeless appeal. Take a seat and browse the rich variety of vintage, new and antique chairs on 1stDibs today.