Michael Thonet in his 60s Rocking Chair, Model 1, ca 1860 Brooklyn Museum "Chair no. 14" ("Konsumstuhl Nr. 14") from 1859 Michael Thonet (2 July 1796 – 3 March 1871) was a German-Austrian cabinet maker, known for the invention of bentwood furniture. Thonet was the son of master tanner Franz Anton Thonet of Boppard. Following a carpenter's apprenticeship, Thonet set himself up as an independent cabinetmaker in 1819. A year later, he married Anna Grahs, with whom he had seven sons and six daughters. Only five of the sons, however, survived early childhood. In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats. His first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl (Boppard layerwood chair) in 1836. Thonet gained substantial independence by acquiring the Michelsmühle, the glue factory that made the glue for this process, in 1837. However, his attempts to patent the technology failed in Germany (1840) as well as in Great Britain, France and Russia (1841).
Thonet's essential breakthrough was his success in having light, strong wood bent into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design entirely novel, elegant, lightweight, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly to fashion - a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past - and whose aesthetic and functional appeal remains to this day. At the Koblenz trade fair of 1841, Thonet met Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who was enthusiastic about Thonet's furniture and invited him to the Vienna court. In the next year, Thonet was able to present his furniture, and his chairs in particular, to the Imperial Family. As the Boppard establishment got into financial difficulties, Thonet sold it and emigrated to Vienna with his family. There, he worked with his sons on the interior decoration of the Stadtpalais Liechtenstein for the Carl Leistler establishment.[1] In 1849, he again opened his own shop together with his four sons.
A few years later, in 1853, he transferred the company to his sons under the name Gebrüder Thonet. In 1850 he produced his Nr 1 chair. The Great Exhibition in London 1851 saw him receive the bronze medal for his Vienna bentwood chairs. This was his international breakthrough. At the next World's Fair, Exposition Universelle in Paris 1855, he was awarded the silver medal as he continued to improve his production methods. In 1856 he was able to open up a new factory in Koryčany, Moravia. Its extensive beech woods were of great significance to his enterprise. The 1859 chair Nr. 14 - better known as Konsumstuhl Nr. 14, coffee shop chair no. 14 - is still called the "chair of chairs" with some 50 million produced and still in production today.[1] The innovative bending technique allowed for the industrial production of a chair for the first time ever. What was revolutionary about the former no.14, which is today’s no. 214, was the fact that it could be disassembled into a few components and thus produced in work -sharing processes.
The chair could be exported to all nations of the world in simple, space saving packages: 36 disassembled chairs could fit into a one cubic meter box.[2] It yielded a gold medal for Thonet's enterprise at the 1867 Paris World's Fair... At the time, the chair no. 14 cleared the way for Thonet to become a global company. Numerous pieces of bentwood furniture followed. Some models also became icons of design history: the rocking chair no. 1 from 1860, later on in the 19th century the successful models no. 18 and no. 56, around 1900 the elegant no. 209 with its curved armrests, which Le Corbusier adored, and in 1904 the art nouveau armchair 247 by Otto Wagner, the so - called postal savings bank chair, to name but a few. Thonet production peaked in 1912: two million different products were manufactured and sold worldwide. In 1857, Michael Thonet’s sons as Gebrüder Thonet commissioned the first Thonet furniture factory to be built in the Moravian town of Koryčany using their father’s plans.
In the coming years, five more production sites were established in Eastern Europe, and in 1889 the seventh and last production site was added in the Hessian town of Frankenberg, Hesse, Germany. After WW I and WW II, this one was the only one to remain. It is Thonet’s head office until today. As Michael Thonet died 1871 in Vienna, the Fa. Gebrüder Thonet had sales locations across Europe as well as Chicago and New York. Today, a museum in the factory in Frankenberg showcases the firm's history and the Thonet design. In 1976 Thonet was divided into a German and an Austrian company (Thonet Vienna). The two companies are independent of each other. In 2006 Gebrüder Thonet became Thonet GmbH.[2] The success of the company Thonet GmbH in Frankenberg, Germany, began with the work of master joiner Michael Thonet (1796-1871). Since he founded his first woodworking shop in 1819 in Boppard, the name Thonet has stood for high-quality, innovative and elegant furniture. Today, Thorsten Muck runs the company with its head offices and production facilities in Frankenberg.
Michael Thonet’s direct descendants in the fifth and sixth generation remain involved in the company’s business as associates and sales partners. The collection comprises famous bentwood furniture, tubular steel classics from the Bauhaus era, and current designs by famous contemporary architects and designers. Often mispronounced "Tho-nay" the name is pronounced "toe-net" with a hard beginning and ending t. The Museum of Applied Arts, MAK Vienna hosts the largest collection of original Thonet chairs in Austria. ^ a b c d e Media related to Michael Thonet at Wikimedia CommonsThonet's bentwood chairs were staples in cafes, and his rockers graced millions of hearths. Michael Thonet, an Austrian cabinetmaker who lived from 1796 to 1871, was obsessed with innovative design. In 1830,Thonet experimented with ways to steam and bend beechwood from the local forests into curved and sturdy, graceful chairs. By 1853, he had opened his own shop, Gebruder Thonet, and by 1860 was producing bentwood rocking chairs with woven cane seats and backs.
Thonet's innovations included the first, affordable, factory-produced, assembly-line chairs that could be shipped in pieces and easily assembled. The Prototype The Schaukel-Fauteuil No. 1 is the first bent beechwood, solid cane-woven rocker, created by Michael Thonet in 1860 in Koritschan, Moravia. The early rockers were stained dark -- either black, hazelnut or mahogany, in contrast to the lighter woven cane seats and backs. The rockers curve around the side of the seat, round over the front and sweep into an open, slightly upturned end, finished with a small scroll. The sinuous arms and spiraling front legs and seat supports taper at the tips into nearly closed curved hooks. Sales of the first bentwood rockers were slow, but, as the style gradually caught on, Thonet added tufted upholstered seats and backs and changed the configuration of the curving wood. Evolving Styles The basic design remains unchanged, but slight variations in style over the years point to various dates of manufacture.
The Thonet museum displays an 1880 rocker with simple, unembellished curved arms, a side support under the seat that starts as a front spiral and ends in the back as a deep U with a slight curved tail. The rockers are an unbroken curve of wood in font, ending in a slightly up-curved, plain tip in back. An 1883 reclining rocker was all closed curves with a continuous cane lounge seat. The back rockers curve completely around and the shorter arms are low and have a wide bentwood overlay. A 1904 rocker, with an upright seat, featured elaborate scrolls on both sides, plain curved rockers, and higher two-piece arms. The changing styles help to identify the period in which a Thonet rocker was produced. Markings and Authentication The rockers were "signed" in several ways. Some chairs were stamped on the seat frame or somewhere on the underside of the chair. Others had a glued label in one of those unobtrusive spots. The labels are obviously fragile and may not have survived, so the absence of either the stamp or label is not conclusive proof that your Thonet rocker isn't genuine.
The Thonet company will try to identify a real Thonet for you from photographs of your chair, and you can contact them through their website to arrange for an evaluation. Limited-Edition Rockers In 2009, Gebruder Thonet issued a limited edition of the original Thonet bentwood rocker. Only 25 of the collector's-edition rockers were made, each in stained beechwood, in a choice of mahogany, black or hazelnut stain with the trademark woven cane seat and back. Each piece was numbered and came with a hand-signed certificate of authenticity, so identifying the 190th anniversary Thonet rockers involves little guesswork. The older rockers take a bit more sleuthing, but, by examining the bentwood styles, hunting for marks or paper labels, and tracing the provenance of a piece, you should be able to come close to figuring out the age of your collectible rocking chair. References Thonet: Thonet, the StoryBedroom Furniture Spot: Michael Thonet and His Bentwood Rocking ChairsDesign Museum: A Century of Chairs: Late 1800sArchitonic: Thonet Collect Photo Credits Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Suggest a Correction