Chair No. 1 was one of the first models to be developed by Michael Thonet in the workshop he established in Vienna in 1849. The back legs and backrest frame are made of a single bentwood element with a thinner bentwood loop inserted inside as a decorative motif.
The form of the chair can be traced to the so-called 'Laufsessel'. These were the lightweight side chairs that Michael Thonet, as subcontractor of the Viennese furniture manufacturer, Carl Leistler, had supplied for the Baroque Liechtenstein City Palace that was newly refurbished in a Rococo Revival style between 1843 and 1848. The back legs and backrest loop motif of the simplest 'Laufsessel' model were made of a single bentwood element, however, and not inserted into the back arch as they are in chair No. 1, for which Thonet returned to the older lamination method that he had developed while still in Boppard in Germany. Among Thonet’s first clients was the Prince of Schwarzenberg, who was presumably inspired by seeing the 'Laufsessel' at the Liechtenstein City Palace and ordered the model No. 1, for his own Baroque garden palace.
Text: Eva B. Ottillinger
