Cesca Chairs

Designed by Marcel Breuer (1902–81) for the Austrian furniture maker Gebrüder Thonet, the original Cesca chair is a paragon of Bauhaus design, combining natural beechwood caning and modern tubular steel for a sensibility that celebrates both handicraft and industrialization. Today vintage Cesca chairs will define casual elegance in your dining room.

Breuer got his start in architecture after dropping out of the painting program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He began apprenticing with a Viennese architect and went on to join the Bauhaus movement in 1921, when he was just 19 years old, eventually becoming a master carpenter at the German arts school. While there, Breuer designed furniture for Sommerfeld House in Berlin, industrialist Adolf Sommerfeld’s private residence, which was conceived by architects Walter Gropius (the Bauhaus school’s founder) and Adolf Meyer. Not long afterward, Breuer’s experiments with tubular steel would yield his Wassily chair, named for his friend, painter and Bauhaus professor Wassily Kandinsky, as well as the Cesca. Whether in metal or wood, Breuer’s design objects are elegant and adaptable examples of classic modernist design — useful and appropriate in any environment.

Originally called the B32, Breuer renamed the Cesca chair in honor of his daughter, Francesca, when Italian manufacturer Gavina began producing it in the early 1960s. Knoll introduced the chair when it acquired Gavina in 1968 and continues to manufacture it today. The Cesca chair was the first-ever tubular steel frame chair with a caned seat to be mass produced — a breakthrough for furniture design.

Find vintage Cesa chairs and other seating on 1stDibs.

With entire areas of our homes reserved for “sitting rooms,” the value of quality antique and vintage seating cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, the design of side chairs, armchairs and other lounge furniture — since what were, quite literally, the early perches of our ancestors — has evolved considerably.

Among the earliest standard seating furniture were stools. Egyptian stools, for example, designed for one person with no seat back, were x-shaped and typically folded to be tucked away. These rudimentary chairs informed the design of Greek and Roman stools, all of which were a long way from Sori Yanagi's Butterfly stool or Alvar Aalto's Stool 60. In the 18th century and earlier, seats with backs and armrests were largely reserved for high nobility.

The seating of today is more inclusive but the style and placement of chairs can still make a statement. Antique desk chairs and armchairs designed in the style of Louis XV, which eventually included painted furniture and were often made of rare woods, feature prominently curved legs as well as Chinese themes and varied ornaments. Much like the thrones of fairy tales and the regency, elegant lounges crafted in the Louis XV style convey wealth and prestige. In the kitchen, the dining chair placed at the head of the table is typically reserved for the head of the household or a revered guest.

Of course, with luxurious vintage or antique furnishings, every chair can seem like the best seat in the house. Whether your preference is stretching out on a plush sofa, such as the Serpentine, designed by Vladimir Kagan, or cozying up in a vintage wingback chair, there is likely to be a comfy classic or contemporary gem for you on 1stDibs.

With respect to the latest obsessions in design, cane seating has been cropping up everywhere, from sleek armchairs to lounge chairs, while bouclé fabric, a staple of modern furniture design, can be seen in mid-century modern, Scandinavian modern and Hollywood Regency furniture styles.

Admirers of the sophisticated craftsmanship and dark woods frequently associated with mid-century modern seating can find timeless furnishings in our expansive collection of lounge chairs, dining chairs and other items — whether they’re vintage editions or alluring official reproductions of iconic designs from the likes of Hans Wegner or from Charles and Ray Eames. Shop our inventory of Egg chairs, designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen, the Florence Knoll lounge chair and more.

No matter your style, the collection of unique chairs, sofas and other seating on 1stDibs is surely worthy of a standing ovation.