Handwoven Orkney Style Straw Brodgar Bench by Gareth Neal

A finely crafted two-seat bench by Gareth Neale and Kevin Gauld, titled ‘Brodgar’, made circa 2012. This piece draws inspiration from traditional Orkney furniture, with a hand-woven ...

We kindly suggest you read the whole description, because with it we try to give you detailed technical and historical information to guarantee the authenticity of our objects. Interesting and graceful oak bench; the legs, conical and elegantly fluted, are joined at the base by a well-designed and harmonious X-shaped element; the well-solid frame is carved with simple, linear, and refined motifs; the upper oval part serves as the seat is enriched with fine "Vienna straw" work. The bench was made between 1880 and 1885 in an artisan workshop near Paris certainly by a very skilled master cabinetmaker because this kind of workmanship requires a lot of experience and skill. The process of seat construction using equidistant holes and a woven plant material (drawn guinea cane) was known since Egyptian times (a stool was found in the tomb of the architect Kha dating from 1600° B.C.), but it was from the mid-19th century that it became popular worldwide. It was the Austro-Hungarian cabinetmaker Michael Thonet (father of bentwood) who in 1842 created chair No. 4 with this technique for the Daum café on Vienna's Kohlmarkt, but success came in 1859 when the Gebruder Thonet company of Michael's sons presented chair No. 14 made of curved solid wood with a straw seat...