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1960s Six Dining Chairs Chiavarine by Fratelli Levaggi / Gaetano Descalzi

About the Item

Exceptional set of six Chiavarine chairs from the 1960s, in walnut wood with original handmade straw seat, in excellent condition, sturdy and without defects. Fratelli Levaggi manufacturer. Abuot Gaetano Descalzi-CHIAVARINA CHAIR- This handcrafted masterpiece, traditional of the Italian region Liguria, is one of the furniture pieces that has been mostly imitated and re-adapted and carries within itself an incredible story. Everything began in Chiavari in 1807, when the marquess Stefano Rivola, on his way back from a trip to Paris, entered the studio of a carpenter that worked with ebony – Giuseppe Gaetano Descalzi, also known as “Campanino”. The marquess was carrying with him a “French Empire style” chair, with a seat made of wicker and a naked structure, dared the carpenter to rework that luxury piece of furniture. This is how the “Chiavari chair” was born, known at that time as “Campanina”, from the creator’s name. 700 grams was its total weight and it was able to sustain 150 kg – something of an exceptional nature seen the massive chairs of those days. Descalzi, by working with local woods such as cherry, maple and beech and by using turning and dovetails techniques, reinterpreted the neoclassical style in a more austere way. What was most interesting about this piece was its seat – it was obtained by intertwining willow tree stripes 1 mm wide directly onto the structure which gave the chair a very rural feel to it. The way the legs and the back were manufactured slimmed down the whole structure, creating a new aesthetic which was less pretentious than the one popular at the time and more appropriate to the new bourgeois spaces. The instant success resulted in King of Italy Carlo Alberto to name Descalzi’s studio “regia manifattura” [“royal factory”]. Briefly, the “Campanina” became a cult object for the European aristocracy and even personalities like Canova and Napoleon III expressed their admiration for Descalzi’s production. Successively, many other studios dedicated to the production of analogous chairs started to prosper in the Italian region. The piece was exported to numerous royal courts around Europe and it started being known with a name with a strong regional signify – “chiavarina”. However, at the end of the century, the Chiavari chair was overshadowed by the onset on the market of the Viennese chair Thonet, the precursor of industrial design and its great future. Yet, in 1952 the creative genius of Gio Ponti started to re-elaborate the “chiavarina” in order to design a new type of chair – using the same creative approach of Descalzi, he gave life to one of the most iconic pieces of Italian design, the “superleggera”. About F.lli Levaggi Since 1963, we have been building authentic handcrafted chairs from Chiavari with traditional methods and materials, but with continuous attention to experimentation and formal research. Elegant, robust and very light, our chairs are assembled to defy the pitfalls of time and constitute authentic masterpieces of art and technique, appreciated by the most demanding interior designers and designers everywhere in the world. Today, after almost seventy years, our chairs furnish some of the most refined and exclusive homes on the five continents. The Chiavari chair is an extraordinary invention from 1807, thanks to the great creative genius of Giuseppe Gaetano Descalzi. The chair immediately appeared in all its singularity: a highly modern, clean and minimal design but above all a completely new structure that left everyone amazed with its ability to combine extreme lightness with unparalleled robustness. For over two centuries, Chiavari chairs have remained a point of reference for architects and designers from all over the world. ​
  • Creator:
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 39.38 in (100 cm)Width: 17.72 in (45 cm)Depth: 17.72 in (45 cm)Seat Height: 17.72 in (45 cm)
  • Sold As:
    Set of 6
  • Style:
    Mid-Century Modern (In the Style Of)
  • Materials and Techniques:
  • Place of Origin:
  • Period:
  • Date of Manufacture:
    1960
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use.
  • Seller Location:
    Vigonza, IT
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: FW1731stDibs: LU2495328334152

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