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Restored Pair of 1960 Herman Miller No1 Hardwood Eames Lounge Armchairs Ottomans

About the Item

We are delighted to offer extremely rare and important pair of fully restored, original, Herman Miller No1 & Herman Miller Hillie circa 1958-1960 black leather and Rosewood lounge armchairs and ottomans These are pretty much the most iconic and well known armchair and ottoman ever made, exhibited countless times, displayed in the V&A, Metropolitan Museum of Art, winners of countless awards these are the simply put the finest suite around They have been on a journey, I’ve had all pieces stripped to the bare shells, the frames have been washed back and traditionally French polished, the leather all restored and hand dyed the original nero black, they are the finest example pair anywhere in the world today One suite has the black Herman Miller No1 label, the other, the earlier redish Herman Miller Hillie label Condition wise, the restoration has been done in such a way to keep all the original charm and patina but make them gallery ready, they will have age and use related patina marks here and there but mostly they are in very fine order Dimensions armchairs Height:- 80.5cm Width:- 85cm Depth:- 86.5cm Seat height:- 41cm Dimensions ottomans Height:- 42cm Width:- 65.5cm Depth:- 53.5cm Please note all measurements are taken at the widest point, MUST READ! The Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman are furnishings made of molded plywood and leather, designed by Charles and Ray Eames for the Herman Miller furniture company. They are officially titled Eames Lounge ( 670 ) and Ottoman ( 671 ) and were released in 1956 after years of development by designers. It was the first chair that the Eameses designed for a high-end market. Examples of these furnishings are part of the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. Design Charles and Ray Eames sought to develop furniture that could be mass-produced and affordable, with the exception of the Eames Lounge Chair. This luxury item was inspired by the traditional English club chair. The Eames Lounge Chair is an icon of Modern style design, although when it was first made, Ray Eames remarked in a letter to Charles that the chair looked "comfortable and un-designy". Charles's vision was for a chair with "the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt." The chair is composed of three curved plywood shells covered with veneer: the headrest, the backrest and the seat. The layers are glued together and shaped under heat and pressure. The shells and the seat cushions are essentially of the same shape, and composed of two curved forms interlocking to form a solid mass. The chair back and headrest are identical in proportion, as are the seat and the ottoman. The products have changed in various ways over time. Beginning in 1956 and running through the very early 1990s, the shells were made up of five thin layers of plywood which were covered by a veneer of Brazilian rosewood. The use of Brazilian rosewood was discontinued in the early 1990s, and current production since then consists of seven layers of plywood covered by finishing veneers of cherry, walnut, palisander rosewood (a sustainably grown wood with similar grain patterns to the original Brazilian versions), and other finishes. Small changes include the sets of spacers between the aluminum spines and the wood panels, originally of rubber, later hard plastic washers, and the number of screws securing the armrests, originally three, changed to two in second-series models, while the "domes of silence" (glides/feet) on the chair base originally had thinner screws attaching them to the aluminum base than those on later chairs, and the zipper around the cushions, either brown or black on early models, was later black only. Further, early ottomans had removable rubber slide-on feet with metal glides, and early labels are of oblong foil. History The Eames Lounge Chair first appeared on the Arlene Francis Home show broadcast on the NBC television network in the US in 1956. Immediately following the debut, Herman Miller launched an advertising campaign that highlighted the versatility of the chair. Print ads depicted the 670 in a Victorian parlor, occupied by a grandmother shelling peas on the front porch of an American Gothic style house, and in the middle of a sunny field of hay. Since its introduction, the chair has been in continuous production by MillerKnoll in the USA. Later, Vitra (in cooperation with the German furniture company Fritz Becker KG) began producing the chair for the European market. It was licensed in the UK for 10 years to Hille International LTD from 1957. Immediately following its release, other furniture companies began to copy the chair's design. Some made direct copies, others were merely influenced by the design. The former Plycraft Company issued dozens of chairs that were direct copies of or in-the-style-of the Eames 670. Later Chinese and European companies began making direct copies. However, Herman Miller and Vitra remain the only two companies to produce these chairs with the Eames name attached. In 2006, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the chair, Miller released models using a sustainable palisander rosewood veneer. Popular culture Frasier features the chair and ottoman in the apartment of the titular character, Frasier Crane, who identifies it by name in the pilot episode and describes it in a later episode as "... the best-engineered chair in the world." Like most of the furnishings, it is there for the entire series. Shark Tank replaced its red chairs it had for eight seasons with Eames Lounge Chairs as part of a new, modern set. iCarly also featured the chair and sometimes ottoman in the Seattle apartment of Carly Shay and her brother Spencer. Both Frasier and iCarly were set in Seattle. House features the chair and ottoman in Dr. House's office, across from his desk. Things I Miss the Most song by Steely Dan mentions " the comfy Eames chair " in the lyric of the second chorus. On display A 1956 rosewood Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The set was a gift of the Herman Miller Company, donated in 1960. A rosewood Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman are on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. A walnut or rosewood Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman are on display and in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. CONDITION Please view the very detailed pictures as they form part of the description pertaining to the condition. Please note vintage period and original items such as leather seating will always have natural patina in the form of creasing and wear, we recommend annual waxing to ensure no moisture is lost, also hand dyed leather is not recommended to sit in direct sunlight for prolonged periods of time as it will dry out and fade.

Creator:
Herman Miller (Retailer),Charles and Ray Eames (Designer),Charles Eames (Designer)
Design:
Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman
Dimensions:
Height: 31.7 in (80.5 cm)Width: 33.47 in (85 cm)Depth: 34.06 in (86.5 cm)Seat Height: 16.15 in (41 cm)
Sold As:
Set of 4
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Hardwood,Leather,Hand-Crafted
Place of Origin:
Denmark
Period:
1960-1969
Date of Manufacture:
1960
Condition:
Refinished. Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
GB
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2823328188022
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Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman

Long before it was the pièce de résistance in a collector’s office or an upscale bachelor pad — landing in ample design magazines, on television and in well-appointed offices over the years — the Eames lounge chair was a fresh, subversive new take on a classic club chair and a culmination of experimentation by its inventive creators.Charles and Ray Eames (1907–78; 1912–88) met while studying at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the prestigious Michigan institution that drew such illustrious design minds as Florence Knoll, Eero Saarinen and more. After graduation, they formed the Eames Office, where they spent much time exploring and formulating new techniques in bent plywood and fiberglass with the goal of producing affordable furniture for a mass market. The Eames lounger, on the other hand — with its signature wood-grain back and sumptuous (usually black) leather seat — was different.While the couple’s DCW chairs, introduced in the 1940s, prioritized ease of production and affordability of materials, the lounge, which debuted in 1956, was Charles and Ray’s interpretation of luxury furniture. And to the Eameses, luxury meant, above all, comfort. The couple famously called the lounge chair and ottoman “a special refuge from the strains of modern living” and described their design as having the “warm receptive look of a well-used first baseman’s mitt.”Although the seat makes use of the same bentwood technique the Eameses pioneered using their famous “Kazam! Machine” (a handmade apparatus for molding plywood) for their DCW chairs, it tops off this frame with supple leather over a plump, upholstered shape. Ever fascinated by ergonomics, the Eameses carefully calibrated the pitch of the seat. It has enough flexibility for comfort but not so much that stability is sacrificed. This precise shape comes by way of three connected plywood pieces, which, on early models is covered in five layers of Brazilian rosewood; owing to an early 1990s-era embargo on the material, however, the Brazilian rosewood has since been replaced with either ash, walnut or palisander. The accompanying ottoman is the icing on the comfort cake, inviting the sitter to quite literally kick back and relax.Today, imitations of the Eames lounge chair and ottoman abound. The seat is currently manufactured by both Herman Miller and Vitra, and when it was launched initially by the former, the supporting marketing blitz emphasized the chair’s versatility — an effort that, given the seat’s current ubiquitousness, was clearly successful.

Shop The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman

Shop All Charles and Ray Eames

Charles and Ray Eames

Charles Eames and Ray Eames were the embodiment of the inventiveness, energy and optimism at the heart of mid-century modern American design, and have been recognized as the most influential designers of the 20th century.

As furniture designers, filmmakers, artists, textile and graphic designers and even toy and puzzle makers, the Eameses were a visionary and effective force for the notion that design should be an agent of positive change. They are the happy, ever-curious, ever-adventurous faces of modernism.

Charles (1907–78) studied architecture and industrial design. Ray (née Beatrice Alexandra Kaiser, 1912–88) was an artist, who studied under the Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann. They met in 1940 at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit (the legendary institution where Charles also met his frequent collaborator Eero Saarinen and the artist and designer Harry Bertoia) and married the next year.

His technical skills and her artistic flair were wonderfully complementary. They moved to Los Angeles in 1941, where Charles worked on set design for MGM. In the evenings at their apartment, they experimented with molded plywood using a handmade heat-and-pressurization device they called the “Kazam!” machine. The next year, they won a contract from the U.S. Navy for lightweight plywood leg splints for wounded servicemen — they are coveted collectibles today; more so those that Ray used to make sculptures.

The Navy contract allowed Charles to open a professional studio, and the attention-grabbing plywood furniture the firm produced prompted George Nelson, the director of design of the furniture-maker Herman Miller Inc., to enlist Charles and (by association, if not by contract) Ray in 1946. Some of the first Eames items to emerge from Herman Miller are now classics: the LCW, or Lounge Chair Wood, and the DCM, or Dining Chair Metal, supported by tubular steel.

The Eameses eagerly embraced new technology and materials, and one of their peculiar talents was to imbue their supremely modern design with references to folk traditions. Their Wire chair group of the 1950s, for example, was inspired by basket weaving techniques. The populist notion of “good design for all” drove their molded fiberglass chair series that same decade, and also produced the organic-form, ever-delightful La Chaise. In 1956 the Eames lounge chair and ottoman appeared — the supremely comfortable plywood-base-and-leather-upholstery creation that will likely live in homes as long as there are people with good taste and sense.

Charles Eames once said, “The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.” For very good collectors and thoughtful interior designers, a piece of design by the Eameses, the closer produced to original conception the better, is almost de rigueur — for its beauty and comfort, and not least as a tribute to the creative legacy and enduring influence of Charles and Ray Eames.

The collection of original Eames furniture on 1stDibs includes chairs, tables, case pieces and other items.