Chair (Schroeder House)

This rare chair represents Rietveld's first experimentation with steel in chair design. Rietveld developed the use of steel and plywood in a number of successive designs, including the Beugelstoel of 1927. The Schroeder chair is considered a prototype "in terms of its combination of materials" although not in the details of its design. The manner in which the steel is bent and welded indicates that it was not created using a steel-bending machine; instead it was created by hand. This example has the original red finish, contrasting with the gray finish on the second known example and a blue finish on a matching table from the Schroeder House. The effect would have been striking, with elemental colors composing the dining suite in the way red, yellow and blue compose Rietveld's lounge chair of 1923. Only two examples of this chair are known to exist with one remaining in the Schroeder House, Utrecht.
Steel, lacquered plywood
17.5''w x 20''d x 32.75''h

Exhibited: Fischer Fine Art, "Pioneers of Modern Furniture," 1990.
Literature: The Complete Rietveld Furniture, Voge and Overy, pg. 20 with discussion of this chair and fig. 64, photograph; 1000 Chairs, Fiell, pg. 194 illustrates this example.

Provenance: Fischer Fine Art, London
Private Collection