Featured WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK THIS IS?

Hey everyone!
I have one more thing that i am curious what you all think about it. I think that this is a barber/hairdresser chair, from late 19. century. It is rotating but only the wooden seat can rotate. The chair style remind me of Thonet chairs because of all the curves, but the chair is all in metal only the seat is wooden. I bought it deep in Italy. It is very heavy and rare - i guess it because i search all the internet but i could not found any similar one. So i am asking all of you what do you think about it? Any sugestion for its purpose and age ? Did you ever saw anything similar to this one ? Thank you all for your opinions and thoughts!

 

It certainly looks very UNIQUE, that's for sure!!! Your idea for a 'barber's chair' seems quite plausible to me at least!!! Great pictures, BTW!! Any maker's marks under the seat??

 

Thank you, we try very hard with pictures so it means a lot No unfortunately there are no markings on the chair.

 

Sure looks different and odd. Are you sure the headrest part is original to the chair? Or maybe added later to adapt the chair to a specific purpose? To me the chair and headrest looks of different age.

What are those little bars in the headrest? Springs? Or rollers? (All most looks like light bars) Surely it would have been padded.. It might be a marriage. Also no marks or stamps on the headrest part?

 

Barber's or (gasps) dentist's. Certainly unusual, and clearly based on Thonet bentwood chairs, so my guess is that it's from the time when they were fashionable not just for bars (i.e. a period piece).

 

I am not sure if it is original or not, but the headrest is missing some part. The little bars are rollers for the paper that they put on the pad - which is missing.

I am looking at the chair and maybe the headrest is really somewhat in strange position, but it is very hard to tell if it was put on later. And unfortunately it has no marks.

 

If it doesnt tilt back I cant see it being a barber or dentist chair. To me that thing on the back looks like a carpet sweeper.

 

No it is not a carpet sweeper.. if the headrest were whole would look like something on this chair that i had in the past. It is a barber/hairdresser chair from cca. 1940s. It has the same type of headrest.

 

Understandable that it will be difficult to tell (without any marks or stamps) Well,it is a very cool and interesting looking combination (unfortunately that’s also really all I know)Hopefully someone will be able to identify it. I would also like to know more about it

 

An image search returned this one for sale on Pamono. They describe as from France 1920-49 but offer no marks or reference to substantiate.

 

Wow wow wow, i never get any reliable search with image search! That is impressive it is almost the same, but maybe is this younger version? I think this because of the seat but maybe this one from pamono was later refurbished And maybe this means that after all the headrest was put additional...
Thank you very much it helps a lot!

 

It looks a bit steampunk, with that carpet roller/headrest that doesn't look like it has anything to do with the chair.
Very nice chair though.

 

I tried to find some additional examples of this chair but wasn't successful. The style seems to be a variation of the Thonet model 15 chair. Thonet produced 100's of styles, including office chairs, barber and dentist chairs and even doll house furniture. This photo from a 1906 catalog shows a couple of barber chairs offered at the time. Bent steel furniture first came out in the late 1920's, so your chair is probably from the 30's. Many companies made Thonet style chairs, so there's no telling who made yours unless you find a marked example or catalog.

 

After you posted that picture of the chair from Pamono i did additional search. From other picures from the chair on Pamono i did notice that chair had holes on the back, which means that both chair had an headrest from the beginning.

..but this blown my mind i didnt even thought to search history of bent steel furniture! Sometimes i am so absorb in searching that i dont even think for searching such obvious things that would help with dating.So very very thankful for your effort and time !

So the conclusion for this wonderful chair is that it was made for dentist/hairdresser/barber and that it is from late 1920s onward...

Thank you all for your thoughts, time and most immortanly for thinking from other perspection.

 

Mark you got it right i think, I was looking through my Furniture book and found A Michael Thonet Chair that resembles the Irenka's chair. 1855 -1915, however these brentwood chairs were widely copied as you may be aware, so you will have to look very very closely.

Here is a picture form the book, aplogies for the poor quality. The lens on the camera is damaged.

 

I have the book on Thonet's history by Christopher Wilk and it says that when their patents expired in 1869 many companies began making exact copies of their chairs, even using the same model numbers. I think almost every country in Europe had a bent furniture factory at some point making Thonet style chairs. So, again, unless you have some kind of tag or mark it's very difficult to determine the maker. Irenka's chair is a bit more obscure, being tubular steel and an unusual design, but the one on Pamono was the only one I could find.

 

Francisco's drawing is of a rocking chair not the still chair Irenka asked about, too.

 

True, but it was in hindsight and i thought i would post the info. I am thinking Irenka's cannot be a Thonet as it is steel and Thonet was specialised in wood design.

 

Thonet made steel furniture as well, beginning in 1929. They produced designs by Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and others, first by their Paris branch, and then later pieces by German designers like Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe.

 

Well I guess a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing sometimes. Thonet back in the races then.