551 - Worpswede chair, armchair with high back, carved female head, rush seat, probably circa 1910

Worpswede chair, armchair with high back, carved female head, rush seat, probably circa 1910 Wood, dark stained, Worpswede chair, armchair with high backrest, two continuous rear uprights grooved at the edges, shaped cut-out crest at the top with chip-carved lines and two pierced carved decorative bands, below a central relief panel between two vertical bars, flat-carved bust of a woman in profile wearing a headdress, below a chip-carved rail with piercings, three short bars and a further chip-carved rail, rush seat, shaped cut-out front seat rail, shaped flat armrests with triple-lobed ends on supports, square legs with grooves and block feet, stretchers of round bars. Probably circa 1910. Condition commensurate with age, armrests worn from frequent use, stain rubbed off there. 128x67x58 cm (HxWxD), seat height 49 cm. The Worpswede chair with decorated back and rush seat originated in the circle of the Worpswede artists' colony and from 1908 was produced in series in Tarmstedt and distributed internationally. The chair type goes back to designs by the brothers Heinrich Vogeler (1872 to 1942) and Franz Vogeler (1876 to 1915) for their Worpsweder Werkstätte, which was founded in 1908 as a large joinery in Tarmstedt, employed up to 30 joiners, saddlers and rush weavers, was represented at the 1910 World's Fair in Brussels and went bankrupt in 1917. The designs combine folk, rural ornament such as chip carving and carved back motifs with the clear lines of Art Nouveau and early Modernism; besides tulips, lilies, owls and horses' heads, heads in profile also appear as back decoration. As early as circa 1905 the joinery W. Heinrich in Osterholz-Scharmbeck made similar chairs in oak and beech, which Heinrich Vogeler took over in 1906; later the firm Feist in Osterholz-Scharmbeck and the carpenter Heitshusen from Lesumstottel also made such rush chairs. The rush weave of such a seat consists of a single strand and takes about one day of weaving work.