Thonet No 30

The development of bentwood for use in furniture is one of history’s most significant innovations in design. A range of renowned mid-century modern designers such as Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen, and Charles and Ray Eames drew heavily on this technological advancement, and the success of their enduring works owes to the efforts of pioneering German-Austrian industrialist and designer Michael Thonet — founder of Thonet and widely considered the father of bentwood furniture. 

Bentwood furniture dates as far back as the Middle Ages, but it is the 19th-century cabinetmaker and master of parquetry 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. He experimented with bending birch rods into rounded shapes — forming delicately seductive, curving Art Nouveau creations that were a daring departure from the heavy, hand-carved designs attributed to his contemporaries. 

The Boppard-born Thonet honed his carpentry skills in his father’s workshop, where he carried out experiments with plywood and modified the Biedermeier chairs that populated the studio. He received an invitation from Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich to contribute Neo-Rococo interiors to the Liechtenstein City Palace in Vienna. From there, the cabinetmaker gained international recognition, including at London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, which featured works created by members of the Arts and Crafts movement as well as industrial products. Thonet showed a range of furniture at the fair and won the bronze medal for his bentwood chairs. He ​​incorporated his family’s company, the Thonet Brothers — or Gebrüder Thonet — with his sons in 1853. 

Considered the world’s oldest mass-produced chair, Michael Thonet’s ubiquitous Chair No. 14 demonstrated that his patented bentwood technology made it possible to efficiently produce furniture on an industrial scale.

Often called the Coffee House chair — the company’s first substantial order was for a Viennese coffeehouse — the No. 14 remains an icon. Thonet originally designed the chair in 1859, and it is considered the starting point for modern furniture. Composed of just six parts, the chair, with its simple, lightweight design, belies its durability. The No. 14 was followed by the No. 18, or the Bistro chair, in 1867, and the 209, or the Architect’s chair, of which Le Corbusier was a fan. (The influential Swiss-French architect and designer used Thonet furniture in his Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau at the 1925 International Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris.)

The business began mass-producing furniture. By the end of the 1850s, there were additional Thonet workshops in Eastern Europe and hundreds of employees. Michael Thonet’s reputation attracted the attention of notable architects including Otto Wagner, Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. 

Thonet’s patented bentwood technology also yielded an improvement to rocking chairs for his company — in the middle of the 19th century, Michael produced a series of rockers in which the different curved parts were integrated into fluid, sinuous wholes. Thanks to Thonet, the humble rocker acquired something unexpected: style. And bentwood furniture was embraced by a series of design greats — the innovation can be found in the seating that Josef Hoffman designed for Thonet, in the elegant Superleggera chair created by Gio Ponti and Alvar Aalto’s expressive Paimio armchair. 

The No. 14 chair earned a gold medal at the 1867 Paris World’s Fair and reportedly sold 50 million copies prior to World War I. Today it’s a staple furnishing in countless movies, television shows, restaurants, bars and homes. 

On 1stDibs, find an array of antique Michael Thonet seating, tables and more.

In its sinuous lines and flamboyant curves inspired by the natural world, antique Art Nouveau furniture reflects a desire for freedom from the stuffy social and artistic strictures of the Victorian era. The Art Nouveau movement developed in the decorative arts in France and Britain in the early 1880s and quickly became a dominant aesthetic style in Western Europe and the United States.

ORIGINS OF ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE DESIGN

• Emerged during the late 19th century
• Popularity of this modernizing style declined in the early 20th century
• Originated in France and Britain but variants materialized elsewhere
• Informed by Rococo, Pre-Raphaelite art, Japanese art (and Japonisme), Arts and Crafts; influenced modernism, Bauhaus

CHARACTERISTICS OF ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE DESIGN

• Sinuous, organic and flowing lines
• Forms that mimic flowers and plant life
• Decorative inlays and ornate carvings of natural-world motifs such as insects and animals 
• Use of hardwoods such as oak, mahogany and rosewood

ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

• Charles Rennie Mackintosh
• Louis Majorelle
• Émile Gallé
• Antoni Gaudí
• Tiffany Studios

ANTIQUE ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

Art Nouveau — which spanned furniture, architecture, jewelry and graphic design — can be easily identified by its lush, flowing forms suggested by flowers and plants, as well as the lissome tendrils of sea life. Although Art Deco and Art Nouveau were both in the forefront of turn-of-the-20th-century design, they are very different styles — Art Deco is marked by bold, geometric shapes while Art Nouveau incorporates dreamlike, floral motifs. The latter’s signature motif is the "whiplash" curve — a deep, narrow, dynamic parabola that appears as an element in everything from chair arms to cabinetry and mirror frames.

The visual vocabulary of Art Nouveau was particularly influenced by the soft colors and abstract images of nature seen in Japanese art prints, which arrived in large numbers in the West after open trade was forced upon Japan in the 1860s. Impressionist artists were moved by the artistic tradition of Japanese woodblock printmaking, and Japonisme — a term used to describe the appetite for Japanese art and culture in Europe at the time — greatly informed Art Nouveau. 

The Art Nouveau style quickly reached a wide audience in Europe via advertising posters, book covers, illustrations and other work by such artists as Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. While all Art Nouveau designs share common formal elements, different countries and regions produced their own variants.

In Scotland, the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh developed a singular, restrained look based on scale rather than ornament; a style best known from his narrow chairs with exceedingly tall backs, designed for Glasgow tea rooms. Meanwhile in France, Hector Guimard — whose iconic 1896 entry arches for the Paris Metro are still in use — and Louis Majorelle produced chairs, desks, bed frames and cabinets with sweeping lines and rich veneers. 

The Art Nouveau movement was known as Jugendstil ("Youth Style") in Germany, and in Austria the designers of the Vienna Secession group — notably Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich — produced a relatively austere iteration of the Art Nouveau style, which mixed curving and geometric elements.

Art Nouveau revitalized all of the applied arts. Ceramists such as Ernest Chaplet and Edmond Lachenal created new forms covered in novel and rediscovered glazes that produced thick, foam-like finishes. Bold vases, bowls and lighting designs in acid-etched and marquetry cameo glass by Émile Gallé and the Daum Freres appeared in France, while in New York the glass workshop-cum-laboratory of Louis Comfort Tiffany — the core of what eventually became a multimedia decorative-arts manufactory called Tiffany Studios — brought out buoyant pieces in opalescent favrile glass. 

Jewelry design was revolutionized, as settings, for the first time, were emphasized as much as, or more than, gemstones. A favorite Art Nouveau jewelry motif was insects (think of Tiffany, in his famed Dragonflies glass lampshade).

Like a mayfly, Art Nouveau was short-lived. The sensuous, languorous style fell out of favor early in the 20th century, deemed perhaps too light and insubstantial for European tastes in the aftermath of World War I. But as the designs on 1stDibs demonstrate, Art Nouveau retains its power to fascinate and seduce.

There are ways to tastefully integrate a touch of Art Nouveau into even the most modern interior — browse an extraordinary collection of original antique Art Nouveau furniture on 1stDibs, which includes decorative objects, seating, tables, garden elements and more.

No matter what your dream dining experience looks like, there is a wide-ranging variety of vintage, new and antique dining room chairs on 1stDibs. Find upholstered dining room chairs, wood dining room chairs and more to outfit any space designated for a good meal, be it in your home or in the great outdoors.

In the early 18th century, most dining room tables and other furniture was designed to look masculine. In America, dining rooms weren’t even much of a concept until the late 1700s, when a space set aside specifically for dining became a part of the construction of homes for the wealthy. Dining room chairs of the era were likely made of walnut or oak. In Europe, neoclassical dining chairs emerged during the 1750s owing to nostalgia for classical antiquity, while the curving chair crests of Queen Anne furniture in the United States preceded the artistically bold seat backs that characterized the Chippendale chairs that followed. If there weren't enough dining chairs at suppertime in the American colonies, men were prioritized and women stood.

In the dining rooms of today, however, there is enough space for everyone to have a seat at the table. Modern styles introduce innovative design choices that play with shape and style. Icons of mid-century modern dining room chairs are plentiful: With its distinctive bentwood back, there is the DCW dining chair by Charles and Ray Eames, while Hans Wegner's timeless classic, the Wishbone chair, remains relevant and elegant decades after its debut. Stefano Giovannoni's White Rabbit dining chairs, in their lovable polyethylene biomorphism, reinvent what dining can look like.

Today's wide range of dining room chairs also means that they can now be styled in different ways, bringing functionality and fun to any sumptuous dining space. No longer do tables have to be accompanied by a matching set of seats. Skillfully mixing and matching colors and designs allows you to showcase your personality without sacrificing the cohesion of a given space.

By furnishing your dining room with cozy chairs — vintage, antique or otherwise — family time can extend far beyond mealtime. The plush upholstery of Victorian-style dining room chairs is perfect for game nights that stretch from dinner to midnight snack. Outdoor tables and dining chairs can also present an excellent opportunity for bonding and eating — what goes better with a delicious meal than fresh air, anyway?

Whether you prefer your chairs streamlined and stackable or ornate and one of a kind, the offerings on 1stDibs will elevate your mealtime and beyond.