Etsy - EmporiumOfEmma Rare Restored 4 X Ercol Butterfly Chairs | 401 Dining Chairs Mid Century Modern Original Vintage 1958
Description
COMING SOON; Professionally & fully restored; this is a set of 4 the very rare Ercol 401 Preformed chair, otherwise known as the "Butterfly chair". I have various blonde Ercol tables for sale; all of which look great with these chairs. Lovely vintage Ercol Butterfly chairs made of elm veneered ply with a bent elm frame & slender turned legs. , originally manufactured by Ercol in 1958-1963; the vintage version of these chairs are so rare that they hardly ever come to market. This is the only set I’ve ever come across in all my years of restoring Ercol furniture. Registered design no. 888,150; beech frame, steam bent beech spine, elm veneered moulded plywood seat & seat back. Their sleek design allows them to fit seamlessly into both traditional & contemporary home environments. They boast the distinctive Ercol silhouette & quality workmanship associated with the famed factory in High Wycombe. Stamped underneath each seat with the registered design code. in fantastic condition given their age, these chairs have been fully refinished (too & undersides) & resealed with 3 coats of a breathable wax based varnish. Some background: "The clean, simple lines of postwar British design are still as fashionable today as they were 50 years ago. The chair's designer, Lucian Randolph Ercolani, arrived in London from his native Florence in 1894. His great grandfather was an evangelical preacher who had upset the Catholic rulers of his home city & the Salvation Army arranged to smuggle the family to England. Ercolani went to Shoreditch College of Furniture & set up his own furniture factory, Ercol, in 1920. The Butterfly chair was launched in 1956 & although not the bestselling Ercol line (the more traditional Windsor was produced in far greater numbers) it is certainly the most iconic. Its clean lines & spare design are almost Scandinavian in simplicity, rather than the more flamboyant Italian style. Ercolani had also perfected the technique of steam-bending wood into curves as well as drying elm with steam so that it wouldn't warp. These methods allowed him to produce both the classic Windsor & the curvy Butterfly. Edward Tadros, Ercolani's grandson, says: "It was a revolutionary design at the time. It had the classic Windsor base but the seat was in bent ply & that curve was new. It's very comfortable, too, which is why it has endured. "Lucian was always fiddling with the designs & the boardroom is full of prototypes that didn't quite work or didn't last very long." Despite its status as a modern design classic, the Butterfly never sold in huge amounts & even went out of production in the 1980s. V I N T A G E Please take time to look at the pictures carefully. I feel they are a good representation of the condition of the furniture. Click the pictures to enlarge. All of my furniture is original vintage. It will show some signs of its previous life. I work very hard to ensure that my items are in the best condition possible. The item will not be in factory new
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