Chair No. 4 is one of the first models that Michael Thonet developed in his Vienna workshop, which he set up in the city’s Gumpendorf neighbourhood in 1849. The chair’s basic shape, consisting of a single bentwood element for the back legs and backrest, can be traced to the *Laufsessel* (a light occasional chair) that Thonet produced for the Liechtenstein City Palace in Vienna in the 1840s.
Initially, Thonet had only made chairs for upper-class Viennese residences, but the No. 4 was used in Café Daum in the centre of Vienna, which had been furnished during the Biedermeier period. It was the first bentwood coffee house chair and became a standard in the traditional Viennese coffee houses clustered along the famous Ringstraße.
The chair’s development also illustrates how Thonet refined his bending technique. Around 1850, it was made of bent laminated wood. After developing the technique of bending solid wood, patented in 1856, the model was produced in a small series from bent solid beech. During series production in the Thonet factories, a lower ring was added to improve its stability.
Text: Eva B. Ottillinger
