I don't know if its authentic, but don't dare paint that chair until you find out! If its real and you paint it, the value plummets.

This chair would be gorgeous with just a little stain to freshen it up.

looks old, I would not paint it and agree a ittle stain or oil will freshen it up.

Nice find. Doesn't look repro to me. Don't paint it & btw, really like your rug.

ps reminds me of finding an original; not repro Cherner side chair (all wood) for $20.

If it's really as old as it looks, it probably pre-dates the laws requiring the "made in .." labels, so maybe that's why it doesn't have one? I'd say don't paint, at least not until you've found an expert to look at it.

Unrelated: I love that rug!

Stain it, don't paint it.

I would hesitate to stain it or do anything to it except maybe a little wax until you find out for sure. Definitely no paint.

I found this through Bing......
February 26, 2010|By TERRY KOVEL Cowles Syndicate
Q: About 10 years ago, my wife and I bought four cafe-style bentwood chairs marked "Mundus, made in Poland, fabrique en Pologne." There's a patent date, "Sept. 22, '14," on the metal leg brackets. The dark finish appears to be original. We paid about $100 for all four chairs. We're curious about the chairs' maker and their value.

A: Mundus was a German conglomerate formed when Leopold Pilzer (1871-1959), an Austrian banker, consolidated 16 small chair manufacturing companies around the turn of the 20th century. It competed with Thonet and Jacob & Josef Kohn, two large chair companies that later merged with Mundus (Kohn in 1914 and Thonet in 1923). Your chairs were made before the Kohn merger, so they date from between about 1900 and 1914. If they're in excellent condition, each one could sell for a few hundred dollars.

I think it's got great patina. I wouldn't paint OR stain it. It looks great as is with the bit of your room that I can see in the pic.

Perhaps you could send an email to the Thonet Museum with photos - they may be able to help you out : http://www.thonet.de/en/the-thonet-museum.html

Of all photos of their chairs, I have not seen one that matches yours... Good Luck.

If you want to find out for sure, you can send a photo to the Thonet factory in Germany.

http://www.thonet.de/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=262&id=299&lang=en&task=view

It costs 25 euros or little more than $30 US.

I hope you find out. I have an old violin with no label to be found and after 8 years of looking STILL haven't any answers. I think your chair will be easier to find info on :)

@apachejaz:

Great answer.

nice chair, so nice that many imitated, but this hairpin back is unusual. could be a sample & never mass-produced. was not painted for 98 years for a reason: it looks better natural. please post when you find out the provenance

(10 months later)...

There are quite a few variations of Thonet's bentwood chair designs, produced by Thonet as well as by competing and subsidiary furniture manufacturers.

Thonet produced many different bentwood designs, up to 18 at least. Thonet still produces some of its old designs today (their cafe chairs are enduringly popular). Perhaps try contacting the company (or a museum), find out if they have old archives of Thonet designs or catalogues and see if you can recognise your chair in their records.

I've noticed Mundus chairs vary quite a bit in parts. Whether this is due to repairs by furniture enthusiasts who mix old pressed parts from broken bentwood chairs or because Mundus itself assembled parts add hoc, I can't know for show.

To complicate things more, some of the designers employed by Thonet were also employed by Mundus.

Your chair has particularly lovely proportions, which suggests it could be a Thonet. Or it could be made by Mundus and designed by an artist who also worked for Thonet (potentially somebody like Josef Hoffmann).

The stamp on the brace could indicate the date Mundus merged with either Kohn or Thonet. Some sources say Mundus merged with Kohn in 1914... and with Thonet in 1922 rather than 1923 as indicated in a comment above.

The braces could also have been manufactured by a separate metal forming company and sold to any number of furniture manufacturers. You could try looking out for chairs with similar braces and checking to see if those chairs have labels under the seat.

Is it a reproduction? ...Even 100 year old Mundus bentwood chairs were once considered reproductions. Mundus bentwood chairs were produced with technology developed and patented by Thonet, Some people say Mundus began competing with Thonet when Thonet's patent for bentwood manufacturing expired. But I also read something somewhere that suggested Thonet could have deliberately outsourced some of it's manufacturing and parts assemblage to other furniture making factories across Austria, Chekoslovakia and Poland.

As for painting your chair, it looks as though it might have been painted and striped before. I wouldn't worry about devaluing it with another coat unless it is in original condition or has a particularly clear pressed pattern (which can be obscured or even degraded by paint and stripping because pressed wood indentations tend to swell back to original flat form when wet).

Lovely chair anyway, however old it is or whoever made it.