Much like a fine wine or the Mona Lisa, some things just get better with age…much like this classic oak bentwood & cane Josef Hoffman Prague 811 armchair by Stendig for Thonet! Talk about the ability to withstand the hands of time!! This Josef Hoffman chair was designed in 1925 but remains a current and fabulous design today. It is comprised of a gorgeous bentwood oak and cane frame, slender rounded arms, and slightly flared legs. Can’t you just imagine it behind your home office desk or at the vanity in your bedroom? Want to add a little splash of Bauhaus style to your living room? We have the perfect side or accent chair for that!! You can be sure it will complement your home with timeless and historical excellence, whatever your style!! Josef Hoffman was one of Austria’s most important architects and designers and was central to the development of art and design in Vienna. He grew up with three sisters and was nicknamed Pepo. His father was the town mayor and a successful businessman. He was a founding member of the Vienna Secession, a radical anti- historicist movement, and together with Koloman Moser created the Wiener Werkstatte cooperative workshop. A highly individualistic architect and designer, Hoffmann’s work combined the simplicity of craft production with a refined aesthetic ornament. Between 1901 and 1905, he designed four villas in Vienna and a sanatorium in Brussels that was called “Stoclet House”, for which he developed a “cubistic” language of form, with an emphasis on straight, unadorned lines. In 1905, he established the Kunstschau with painter Gustav Klimt and, two years later, founded the Deutscher Werkbund. Hoffmann worked well into his 80s, continuing to use the geometric motifs that influenced the art deco style of the 1920s. In 1928 his work appeared in the Art in Industry exhibition held at Macy’s in New York City, where it exerted a strong influence on American designer Donald Deskey. Hoffmann is one of the seminal figures in the modern decorative arts movement of the first half of the 20th century. Stendig was totally the brainchild and passion of Charles W. Stendig. You cannot write or talk about Stendig without explaining Charles. He was a pioneer of import goods in the mid- century. After serving in WWII as a paratrooper, he studied business with emphasis on international trade at NYU and City College of New York. Afterward first working for Raymor, another pioneering distribution company, for about two years, departing to start his own business: Stendig. He opened his first showroom in 1956 in midtown Manhattan. He is credited for sparking America’s interest in furniture from Finland, Switzerland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia. He imported from the likes of Thonet, Asko, and De Sede; and from iconic designers including Le Corbusier, Josef Hoffmann, Eero Aarnio, Tapio Wirkkala, Marcel Breuer, Jonathan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, Carlo Mollino, Carlo Scarpa, and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni to name just a few. By the late 1960’s, Stendig had showrooms in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco with a large headquarters in NYC. They were exciting and good times but short lived. The business was a challenge and when an offer was made by Burlington Industries to purchase, Charles agreed. He stayed on till 1976 to oversee and then retired. I have searched the internet to no avail to find out if a Stendig division is still in operation. But I can only find the Stendig Calendar, the only calendar in MoMA’s collection, which was designed for Stendig by Mossimo Vignelli, still offered. But I am having a hard time deciding who is creating and offering it. I do know Burlington Industries was bankrupt by 2001, purchased in 2003, merged with Cone Mills in 2004 and subsequently into ITG or International Textile Group. But the Stendig name reins as an icon of high style mid-century offerings. Thonet was founded by Michael Thonet. Michael was born in 1796 and was apprenticed by his father to a cabinetmaker. Shortly after he married, Michael opened his one-man cabinetmaking shop creating furniture and cabinetry in the traditional manner by carving the needed parts and then joining them together. In 1830 he began experimenting with bending wood into curved shapes and thus began a successful furniture company that has remained continually in operation for nearly 200 years. Thonet’s early work was very Biedermeier in style and not made for the common man. Gradually his designs became more Art Nouveau. In 1951 his chairs for the Crystal Palace at the London World’s Fair won a prize medal and by the late 1950s he began to make his first “consumer” chair. In 1875, a year before Michael’s death, Thonet’s five factories made 620,000 chairs. Then in 1876 after his death the company became Gebruder Thonet. But all was not roses. In 1869 the Thonet patents lapsed and by 1893 there were 52 bentwood companies in Europe. However, Thonet persevered. They branched out. They merged. They added designs by Le Corbusier and Breuer and alternative materials such as tubular chrome in place of bentwood to their offerings. Business boomed and waned through the years and there was even a Thonet revival, so to speak, beginning in the 1940s on into the mid-20th century. Till today, in the 21st century, Thonet is still a furniture company to be reckoned with almost 200 years later. We are in love with this iconic masterpiece designed by Josef Hoffman and if you are too, you need to make it yours! Price: $1,495 Breathtaking! This stunning quadruple set of gorgeous lighting is just that!! Honestly, we have never seen anything with quite the unique detail that encompasses this collection of lighting. The details are mind blowing…The chandelier is hand and mouth blown and the brass is stamped made in Czechoslovakia. The glass stem pieces on the column or body are blown into an oblong or ovoid shape with a circular center ball between them and a polished brass tube runs through the center. The bottom bobeche appears to be floating as it is held by a brass bushing and a solid brass base finial. 12 blown glass arms extend from the brass base. All twelve arms display beautiful brass rings that hold the blown glass bobeche which are gently painted with a delicate brass gold ring design. Even the working parts of these lights add to their overall beauty like the and off-white candle tubes, candelabra bulbs, and the gold fabric covered electrical cord running through the blown glass candelabra arms which adds to the overall amber glow. This would be a phenomenal piece in an entry way, stairway, dining room, or a room that needs elegant or glamorous lighting. It suspends from the ceiling on a lovely brass chain and its delicate appearance is sophisticated and very nicely made. Have we even mentioned the three…yes, I said THREE additional sconces that accompany this fabulous chandelier? They have the matching design with two arms that extend from a brass cup inside a decorative glass cup that has the same floating appearance as the chandelier. They mount to the wall on a brass wall canopy. Brass rings hold the blown glass bobeche that display the off-white candle tubes and candelabra bulbs. There is an overall golden glow to the glass from all the brass accents and when it is all turned on, they resonate comforting light and absolute beauty. They will be outstanding whether used all together or separately. If you have been in search of the perfect chandelier, wall sconces, or all of the above…you just found them. Now, make them yours!! Price: $4,995 Wow! Just look at this beautiful bright Bohemian glass vase. Designed by Rony Plesl its bold orange body is cased in clear glass blown into a mold and wrapped and cinched in at is shoulder with a Kelly-green glass thread. Distinctively recognized as modern Czech glass with its beautiful coloration and shape. It would be lovely displayed alone or with your collection. It is signed and in fabulous condition. Rony Plesl is currently considered one of the best and most famous Czech product designers. He is known mainly in the field of glass design and his original glass and stone sculptures. Rony is a graduate of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague where he has been the head of the Glass Studio since 2008. His recent work focuses on uranium glass which can be done only in a few glassworks in Europe. Besides his own limited edition works he is associated with Barovier, Moser, Ajeto, and Kvetna glass to name just a few glassworks with which he cooperates. He has one-of-a-kind works of art throughout the world including a chandelier for the Prague luxury restaurant Mlynec, and glass sculptures for Disney World Hotel in Florida. Plesl has received many design awards and holds exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad. We love this vase. You should hurry and make it yours before we change our minds…and keep it ourselves! Price: $295 Modern looking rocking chairs are so difficult to come by. And this one, although not officially modern by its design year, fills that void. This rocker, or I actually mean one like it, was first designed in the 1860s by Michael Thonet. So, by the time it was imported to the US from Czechoslovakia by Charles Stendig, the design was already 100 years old! That is what I call timeless design.