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Lot Essay
"The Amersfoortse chair by Rietveld was designed for the exhibition "Beauty in House and Garden" in Amersfoort in 1950. For the exhibition five examples were executed by a blacksmith. The Centraal Museum has one of the five chairs in the collection. The frame of the chair is made of steel tube of about 18 mm. diam. The seat and back are strung with braided wire welded into the frame. Resting on the frame are upholstered foam cushions. The story goes that the dimensions of the chair were based on standard jeep cushions which measure 45 x 45 cm. In my opinion this is not true. The pads measure 39 x 43 cm. and 38.5 x 41 cm. The seat of the chair of the Centraal Museum is supporting a plywood board with a ruler of 15 x 35 mm. to avoid the cushion to slide to the rear. This must have been added later. Due to sitting the braided wire was sagging.
In 1954 NeMeFa produced and sold a few hundred Amersfoortse chairs. To accommodate this production, Rietveld made two important changes. The steel tube of the frame became smaller, about 15 mm. diam. instead of 18 mm., and the wooden armrests mounted on the frame got a different shape. On the prototype, this is a slat of 22 mm. high x 40 mm. wide x 295 mm. long with a semi-circular end at both end faces. On the NeMeFa chair this is a slat of 25 mm. high x 50 mm. wide x 350 mm. long with straight end at the faces. The first arm lies flush with the outside of the frame, the other with the inside. These changes made the appearance of the chair significantly more elegant. The prototype looks a little plump out, so it was a major improvement.
The model from the household of Rietveld, here on offer, deviates from the series produced by NeMeFa chairs. The cushions of this chair are 40 x 45 cm. Furthermore, the frame is faultily welded so that the welding of the two front legs to the frame of the seat came loose. Rietveld resolved this in his characteristic way. He drilled a hole in the position of the weld, put a nail through it which he bent to the underside and continued to use the chair. When we used the chair we noticed that the welding of the mesh in the frame was not so good either and that it came loose. We had it repaired by a smith. An explanation for the difference in the quality of the Rietveld chair compared with the later production may be that this sample is the one that Rietveld had made to assess the adaptions he had made after the prototype and before the NeMeFa production. This chair on offer would then be the model between the exhibition prototypes and the final production of NeMeFa."
In 1954 NeMeFa produced and sold a few hundred Amersfoortse chairs. To accommodate this production, Rietveld made two important changes. The steel tube of the frame became smaller, about 15 mm. diam. instead of 18 mm., and the wooden armrests mounted on the frame got a different shape. On the prototype, this is a slat of 22 mm. high x 40 mm. wide x 295 mm. long with a semi-circular end at both end faces. On the NeMeFa chair this is a slat of 25 mm. high x 50 mm. wide x 350 mm. long with straight end at the faces. The first arm lies flush with the outside of the frame, the other with the inside. These changes made the appearance of the chair significantly more elegant. The prototype looks a little plump out, so it was a major improvement.
The model from the household of Rietveld, here on offer, deviates from the series produced by NeMeFa chairs. The cushions of this chair are 40 x 45 cm. Furthermore, the frame is faultily welded so that the welding of the two front legs to the frame of the seat came loose. Rietveld resolved this in his characteristic way. He drilled a hole in the position of the weld, put a nail through it which he bent to the underside and continued to use the chair. When we used the chair we noticed that the welding of the mesh in the frame was not so good either and that it came loose. We had it repaired by a smith. An explanation for the difference in the quality of the Rietveld chair compared with the later production may be that this sample is the one that Rietveld had made to assess the adaptions he had made after the prototype and before the NeMeFa production. This chair on offer would then be the model between the exhibition prototypes and the final production of NeMeFa."