Hans J. Wegner for Johannes Hansen Rare Set of Seven Dining Chairs in Black Leather
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This exceptionally rare set of seven armchairs, designed by Hans J. Wegner for the esteemed Danish cabinetmaker Johannes Hansen during the 1950s, embodies the refined craftsmanship and understated elegance of mid-century Danish furniture design. The chairs feature tall, gently reclined backrests and broad, enveloping armrests, upholstered in black leather. Subtly curved legs and low horizontal stretchers in mahogany lend the design a sense of lightness while emphasizing its carefully considered construction.
The chairs reflect Wegner’s exceptional sensitivity to proportion, comfort, and material, combining an inviting, almost sculptural presence with the precision of traditional cabinetmaking. His celebrated collaboration with Johannes Hansen resulted in some of the most accomplished furniture of the Danish modern movement, distinguished by an uncompromising commitment to quality and craftsmanship.
Hans Wegner (1914-2007) is one of the most prolific furniture designers of the world. Wegner was born in 1914 in Denmark and began his apprenticeship with Danish master cabinetmaker H.F. Stahlberg when he was fourteen years old. Afterwards, he moved to Copenhagen and attended the School of Arts and Crafts between 1936 and 1938. In 1938, he was approached by the architects and designers Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller. It was also during this period that he started to collaborate with cabinetmaker Johannes Hansen. In 1943, he established his own studio, and he became one of the most renowned and creative Danish furniture designers. Wegner's furniture was designed with the greatest understanding of materials, construction techniques, and use. Wegner is known to have thorough understanding of the materials he worked with, yet his greatest aim was to create expressive and exciting design. Although Wegner was a functionalist, he was not a rational dogmatist such as Kaare Klint, of whom he was a student. Instead, his designs sparkle with inventiveness and sculptural sense. But this never meant that his organic and sensuous forms left the strict rules of functionalism. At heart, Wegner was an idealist. He was relentless in his quest for the best chair: 'there is never one damn thing that cannot be made better'. However, Wegner was aware that he could not create the 'perfect' chair, which gave him the freedom to produce as much as possible. He left behind more than 3500 drawings and about 500 of his designs went into production. His designs feature in the UN Building and Seagram Building in New York, UNESCO's headquarters. NATO's headquarters in Paris, and several buildings by the architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
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From an apprenticeship in Tønder to 'The Chair'
Born in the southern Danish town of Tønder, the son of a shoemaker, Wegner began training as a cabinetmaker at fourteen and had completed four years under master H.F. Stahlberg by the time he turned eighteen. He moved to Copenhagen to study at the School of Arts and Crafts from 1936 to 1938, then joined architects Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller in Aarhus to design furniture for the new Aarhus City Hall — his first serious commission.
It was in this period that master joiner Johannes Hansen began following Wegner's progress; their collaboration, formalised through the 1940s, produced showpieces built for Copenhagen's Cabinetmakers' Guild exhibitions, among them the Round Chair of 1949, developed from Wegner's studies of Ming dynasty portrait chairs. In 1950, a separate partnership with Carl Hansen & Søn brought the related Wishbone Chair (CH24) into continuous production, a chair still made to Wegner's original drawings today.
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