Vintage Lounge Chair by Fritz Hansen

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About the Item

Stunning vintage modern lounge chair features stylish slanted wood armrests and aqua blue upholstery. Unusual combination of chrome, fabric, and wood adding to the allure. This Danish arm chair is sure to add style and grace to any seating arrangement. Labeled “Made in Denmark,” by Fritz Hansen. Please confirm item location (NY or NJ).Creator: Fritz Hansen (Manufacturer)Dimensions: Height: 33 in (83.82 cm)Width: 27 in (68.58 cm)Depth: 26 in (66.04 cm)Seat Height: 17 in (43.18 cm)Style: Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)Materials and Techniques: Chrome,Upholstery,WoodPlace of Origin: DenmarkPeriod: 1970-1979Date of Manufacture: circa 1970sCondition: GoodWear consistent with age and use. age appropriate wear, some gouges and scratches on arm rests, some oxidation on metal, some stains on upholstery.Seller Location: Brooklyn, NYReference Number: Seller: 0311-5428NJc1stDibs: LU92186450753Shop All Fritz Hansen

Fritz Hansen

When the Copenhagen-based furniture maker Fritz Hansen opened for business more than 140 years ago, the company which today styles itself The Republic of Fritz Hansen adhered to the traditional, time-honored Danish values of craftsmanship in woodworking and joinery. Yet thanks to the postwar innovations of Arne Jacobsen and others, Fritz Hansen would become the countrys leader in Scandinavian modern design using new, forward-looking materials and methods.

Fritz Hansen started his company in 1872, specializing in the manufacture of small furniture parts. In 1915, the firm became the first in Denmark to make chairs using steam-bent wood (a technique most familiar from birch used in the ubiquitous caf chairs by Austrian maker Thonet). At the time, Fritz Hansen was best known for seating that featured curved legs and curlicue splats and referenced 18th-century Chippendale designs.

In the next few decades, the company promoted simple, plain chairs with slatted backs and cane or rush seats designed by such proto-modernist masters as Kaare Klint and Sren Hansen. Still, the most aesthetically striking piece Fritz Hansen produced in the first half of the 20th century was arguably the China chair of 1944 by Hans Wegner and that piece, with its yoke-shaped bentwood back- and armrest, was based on seating manufactured in China during the Ming dynasty. (Wegner was moved by portraits hed seen of Danish merchants in the Chinese chairs.)

Everything changed in 1952 with Arne Jacobsens Ant chair. The collaboration between the architect and Fritz Hansen officially originated in 1934 that year, Jacobsen created his inaugural piece for the manufacturer, the solid beechwood Bellevue chair for a restaurant commission. The Ant chair, however, was the breakthrough.

With assistance from his then-apprentice Verner Panton, Jacobsen designed the Ant chair for the cafeteria of a Danish healthcare company called Novo Nordisk. The chair was composed of a seat and backrest formed from a single piece of molded plywood attached, in its original iteration, to three tubular metal legs. Its silhouette suggests the shape of the insects body, and the lightweight, stackable chair and its biomorphic form became an international hit.

Jacobsen followed with more plywood successes, such as the Grand Prix chair of 1957. The following year he designed the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen and its furnishings, including the Egg chair and the Swan chair. Those two upholstered pieces, with their lush, organic frames made of fiberglass-reinforced polyurethane, have become the two chairs most emblematic of mid-20th-century cool. Moreover, the Egg and Swan led Fritz Hansen to fully embrace new man-made materials, like foam, plastic and steel wire used to realize the avant-garde creations of later generations of designers with whom the firm collaborated, such as Piet Hein, Jrn Utzon (the architect of the Sydney Opera House) and Verner Panton. If the Fritz Hansen of 1872 would not now recognize his company, todays connoisseurs certainly do.

Find a collection of vintage Fritz Hansen tables, lounge chairs, sofas and other furniture on 1stDibs.