Alivar Charles Rennie Mackintosh 804 Willow 2 1903 | 1980
Chair model 804 Willow 2 produced by Alivar in 1980 design Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1903. Frame in black lacquered ash wood, high backrest with rungs, seat in hand-woven straw.
Sizes: H104, W46, D39, HS44.
Set of six chairs in good vintage condition.
Description
Bibliography: Alivar Museum Catalogue, The Classics of Modern Furniture, page 47.
This chair was designed for use in various areas of the Willow Street Tea Rooms.
It is the most successful version of the typical ladder chair designed by Mackintosh.
It is interesting to note that the first chair supposedly designed by Mackintosh for David Gauld’s bedroom, in 1893, was a ladder-back chair.
He used the same type of back again in 1901, for Whindyhill, Kilmacolm. He designed another type of ladder back for this house.
However, unlike the present model, both of the previous two were very traditional chairs and showed very little of Mackintosh’s style.
The current production is the same as the original design produced for the Willow Tea Rooms.
After some time in use, the Willow Tea Rooms chair was given a brace to the back of the back. This reinforcement was added to all chairs in use in the tea room and, consequently, all extant examples feature this modification.
It is not known whether Mackintosh himself suggested or approved the modification. In fact, it appears that customers very often repaired, reinforced, or produced the original models designed by Mackintosh without asking for his intervention or approval.
In any case, all early photographs of the tea room show the chair before the addition of this reinforcement and it seems obvious that this element is extraneous to Mackintosh’s original design.
Therefore, the present reproduction, respecting the original, is without this “reinforcement”.
Photographs from a private collection (Museo Della Sedia) of vintage Italian design chairs. © All rights reserved.
Alivar Charles Rennie Mackintosh 804 Willow 2 1903 | 1980
Chair model 804 Willow 2 produced by Alivar in 1980 design Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1903. Frame in black lacquered ash wood, high backrest with rungs, seat in hand-woven straw.
Sizes: H104, W46, D39, HS44.
Set of six chairs in good vintage condition.
Description
Bibliography: Alivar Museum Catalogue, The Classics of Modern Furniture, page 47.
This chair was designed for use in various areas of the Willow Street Tea Rooms.
It is the most successful version of the typical ladder chair designed by Mackintosh.
It is interesting to note that the first chair supposedly designed by Mackintosh for David Gauld’s bedroom, in 1893, was a ladder-back chair.
He used the same type of back again in 1901, for Whindyhill, Kilmacolm. He designed another type of ladder back for this house.
However, unlike the present model, both of the previous two were very traditional chairs and showed very little of Mackintosh’s style.
The current production is the same as the original design produced for the Willow Tea Rooms.
After some time in use, the Willow Tea Rooms chair was given a brace to the back of the back. This reinforcement was added to all chairs in use in the tea room and, consequently, all extant examples feature this modification.
It is not known whether Mackintosh himself suggested or approved the modification. In fact, it appears that customers very often repaired, reinforced, or produced the original models designed by Mackintosh without asking for his intervention or approval.
In any case, all early photographs of the tea room show the chair before the addition of this reinforcement and it seems obvious that this element is extraneous to Mackintosh’s original design.
Therefore, the present reproduction, respecting the original, is without this “reinforcement”.
Photographs from a private collection (Museo Della Sedia) of vintage Italian design chairs. © All rights reserved.
