Gebrüder Thonet’s first catalogue sheet, printed in 1859, contained fourteen different chair models, which mainly differed in the design of the backrest. Chair No. 14 was the simplest in the series. Its two back legs and backrest are made of a single bentwood arch with a shorter bentwood arch inside it. The only other parts are the seat frame with the caned seat and the two front legs, which are screwed into the seat frame.
The idea of manufacturing an entire series of chairs from standardized parts for assembly by the retailer as well as the naming of the chairs with fixed model numbers and the marking of all Thonet products with the manufacturer’s name grew out of Thonet’s ambition to conquer the world market and hence was part of a larger strategy. The decision to dispatch only partially finished products for assembly at sales outlets worldwide was motivated in part by concerns about the humidity to which the chairs would be exposed in the hold of a ship. Moreover, far less hold space was required for individual parts than for whole chairs. The parts for thirty-six No. 14 chairs took up no more than a single cubic metre.
The No. 14 has remained the cheapest and most widely produced chair model in the Thonet range, which is why it came to be known as the ‘cheap consumer model’. It cost just three gulden when first sold, roughly equivalent then to the price of three dozen eggs. No fewer than fifty million of these chairs were sold worldwide between 1859 and 1930.
Text: Eva B. Ottillinger
