Coat stand
after Michael Thonet (1796-1871)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1970
Materials
Painted beech
Measurements
190 x 53 cm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Austria
Order this imageCollection
Mompesson House, Wiltshire
NT 724136.2
Summary
One of a pair of painted beech bentwood coat stands, after a design by Michael Thonet (1796–1871) Vienna, mid 20th century With six coat hooks raised on a turned stand with out swept legs and a circular stretcher. Michael Thonet (1796–1871) was born in Boppard am Rhein, Prussia, and trained as a traditional cabinet-maker. In the 1830s, as an alternative to the laborious technique of carving, he began bending wood to create furniture. In 1855 Thonet made a key technological breakthrough. After years of bending laminated wood, he discovered that by attaching a metal strip along its length, solid wood could be bent in a similar way. This eliminated the costly lamination process and earned patents guaranteeing a virtual monopoly on production. In 1857 Thonet built a new factory in Koritschan in the Moravian forests (in what was then Austro-Hungary) with a ready supply of beech wood, plenty of cheap labour and access to important rail links. The firm went on to mass-produce ‘bentwood’ furniture in unprecedented numbers, manufacturing up to 1.8 million pieces a year by 1912. James Weedon (April 2018)
Provenance
Purchased by The National Trust c, 1977
Makers and roles
after Michael Thonet (1796-1871), furniture manufacturer