Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of 4 Cesca Chairs by Marcel Breuer, 1970s
View Similar Items
Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of 4 Cesca Chairs by Marcel Breuer, 1970s
About the Item
- Creator:Marcel Breuer (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 31.5 in (80 cm)Width: 18.12 in (46 cm)Length: 31.5 in (80 cm)Seat Height: 18.12 in (46 cm)
- Sold As:Set of 4
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1970s
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Prato, IT
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2802318817062
Cesca Chair
Ubiquitous but never boring, the Cesca chair has defined casual elegance in the dining room since 1928. Designed by Marcel Breuer (1902–81) for the Austrian furniture maker Gebrüder Thonet, the original Cesca chair combines natural beechwood caning and modern tubular steel for a sensibility that celebrates both handicraft and industrialization. It’s a paragon of Bauhaus design, embodying the school’s “truth to materials” philosophy and adhering to the movement’s emphasis on mass production. In fact, the Cesca chair was the first-ever tubular steel frame chair with a caned seat to be mass produced — a breakthrough for furniture design.
Breuer got his start in architecture after dropping out of the painting program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He began apprenticing with a Viennese architect and went on to join the Bauhaus movement in 1921, when he was just 19 years old, eventually becoming a master carpenter at the German arts school. While there, Breuer designed furniture for Sommerfeld House in Berlin, industrialist Adolf Sommerfeld’s private residence, which was conceived by architects Walter Gropius (the Bauhaus school’s founder) and Adolf Meyer. Not long afterward, Breuer’s experiments with tubular steel would yield his Wassily chair, named for his friend, painter and Bauhaus professor Wassily Kandinsky, as well as the Cesca.
Originally called the B32, Breuer renamed the chair in honor of his daughter, Francesca, when Italian manufacturer Gavina began producing it in the early 1960s. Knoll introduced the chair when it acquired Gavina in 1968 and continues to manufacture it today.
And while the Cesca chair’s silhouette has remained the same throughout the decades, Breuer himself later made minor modifications, including the implementation of a shallower curve to the back and the addition of a second piece of steel for the frame to account for both comfort and durability. With the Cesca’s cantilevered construction, Breuer’s design transcended that of the traditional four-legged dining chair, pushing the boundaries of what “everyday” could mean in furniture.
Marcel Breuer
The architect and designer Marcel Breuer was one the 20th century’s most influential and innovative adherents of modernism. A member of the Bauhaus faculty, Breuer — like such colleagues as the architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the artists and art theoreticians László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers — left Europe in the 1930s to champion the new design philosophy and its practice in the United States.
Born in Hungary, Breuer became a Bauhaus student in 1920 and quickly impressed Gropius, the German school’s founder, with his aptitude for furniture design. His early work was influenced by the minimalist Dutch design movement De Stijl — in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld. In 1925, while he was head of the Bauhaus furniture workshop, Breuer realized his signature innovation: the use of lightweight tubular-steel frames for chairs, tables and sofas — a technique soon adopted by Mies and others. Breuer’s attention gradually shifted from design to architecture, and, at the urging of Gropius, he joined his mentor in 1937 on the faculty of Harvard and in an architectural practice.
In the 1940s, Breuer opened his own architectural office, and there his style evolved from geometric, glass-walled structures toward a kind of hybrid architecture — seen in numerous Breuer houses in New England — that pairs bases of local fieldstone with sleek, wood-framed modernist upper floors. In his later, larger commissions, Breuer worked chiefly with reinforced concrete and stone, as seen in his best-known design, the brutalist inverted ziggurat built in New York in 1966 as the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Breuer’s most famous furniture pieces are those made of tubular steel, which include the Wassily chair — named after Wassily Kandinsky and recognizable for its leather-strap seating supports — and the caned Cesca chair. Breuer also made several notable designs in molded plywood, including a chaise and nesting table for the British firm Isokon and a student furniture suite commissioned in 1938 for a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.
Find vintage Marcel Breuer seating, storage cabinets and lighting on 1stDibs.
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of Chrome and Black Cesca Chair by Marcel BreuerBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian set of 3 chrome cantilever Cesca chair with black lacquered wood profiles by Marcel Breuer. The chairs are in really good ...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsChrome
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of 4 Bamboo and Leather Dining Chairs, 1970sLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian set of 4 bamboo dining chairs with original floral fabric cushions. All the binding of the chairs are made with leather laces. The chairs can become a s...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsLeather, Fabric, Bamboo, Rattan
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of 5 Bamboo and Rattan Chairs, 1970sLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian set of 5 bamboo and rattan dining chairs. 1970s All the chairs are in really good vintage conditions. In one of the chairs, one of the seat slats is damag...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
MaterialsBamboo, Rattan
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of 4 Willy Rizzo Brass Chairs. 1970sBy Willy RizzoLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian set of 4 Willy Rizzo dining chairs with gilt brass structure and original vintage "Rubelli" velvet fabric.Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsBrass
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Pair of Bamboo Chairs, 1970sLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian Pair of Bamboo and Rattan Chairs. 1970s They can become a set with their table as shown in the photos. The chairs are in really good vintage conditions. ...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsBamboo, Rattan
- Mid-Century Modern Italian Set of 4 Giotto Stoppino Chrome Chairs from 1970sBy Giotto StoppinoLocated in Prato, ITMid-Century Modern Italian set of Giotto Stoppino chairs with chrome structure and original fabric apholstery in brick-colored. If needed the chairs available are 5 pieces. The fab...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Chairs
MaterialsChrome
- Vintage Glass Circular Dining Table + Set of 4 Marcel Breuer Cesca ArmchairsBy Marcel BreuerLocated in Ely, GBA Vintage, Modernist Glass And Chrome Dining Table & A Set of 4 Marcel Breuer B32 ‘Cesca’ Armchairs. The tubular chrome frame and the glass top are in great vintage condition, with ...Category
Vintage 1980s Italian Bauhaus Dining Room Sets
MaterialsChrome
- VINTAGE MID CENTURY MODERN MARCEL BREUER CESCA HABITAT EXTENDING DiNING TABLEBy Marcel BreuerLocated in GBRoyal House Antiques Royal House Antiques is delighted to offer for sale this vintage Mid Century Modern, Marcel Breuer Cesca designed for Habitat, black Ash & Chrome extending dining table...Category
20th Century European Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
MaterialsChrome
- Italian modern Wooden desk mod. Canaas by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970sBy Marcel Breuer, GavinaLocated in MIlano, ITItalian modern Wooden desk mod. Canaas by Marcel Breuer for Gavina, 1970s Desk mod. Canaas with rectangular wooden top. On one side there are 2 drawers and on the other 4. It has a ...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Modern Desks and Writing Tables
MaterialsWood
- Marcel Breuer Style Desk 1950s Mid-Century ModernBy Thonet, Marcel BreuerLocated in Lucca, ITMarcel Breuer style desk 1950s Mid-Century Modern.Category
Vintage 1940s Austrian Mid-Century Modern Desks and Writing Tables
MaterialsMetal
- 2 Italian Mid-Century Modern Carrara Marble Consoles /Sofa Tables Marcel BreuerBy Marcel BreuerLocated in New York, NYTimeless pair of Italian modern neoclassical marble consoles or sofa tables in the style of modernist architect Marcel Breuer. The pieces a...Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Console Tables
MaterialsCarrara Marble
$13,900 Sale Price / item22% Off - Mid-Century Modern Glass and Chrome Dining SetLocated in Brooklyn, NYThis vintage modern glass and chrome dining set is stylish and functional. A stunning chrome base under a beautiful glass tabletop is sure to enlight...Category
Vintage 1970s Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Sets
MaterialsGlass
$3,220 Sale Price / set30% Off