A PAIR OF CHROMED STEEL 'MODEL NO. B301' OR 'DOSSIER BASCULANT' ARMCHAIRS

Wassily: This design was conceived by Breuer (1902-81) in 1925 for the painter Wassily Kandinsky's staff quarters at the Dessau Bauhaus and was his earliest experiment with tubular steel furniture. The very first example produced in this year by Breuer and his assistants was welded throughout; the result was a chair which was structurally quite weak, and also very bulky to store. This structure was quickly revised to a model where the elements were made separately then bolted together, resulting in a chair which was both stronger and easier to produce in numbers. The earliest examples produced under Breuer's direction at Standard Möbel in 1926 had an open 'U' shaped back (see: Christie's London, 11 May 1999, Lot 76); this design was modified by Breuer in 1927/8 to the bent closed upper back seen in the present example, and this upper back form endured in subsequent production till the present day.