Pair of Armchairs & Stools by Emanuele Rambaldi for Guido Chiappe, Italy, 1930s

The defining gesture of the set is a single bent line that ties the front leg, the armrest and the rear support into one continuous curve of steam-bent wood. The profile opens forward at the armrest, turns at the knee and folds back to meet the backrest; the rear legs splay slightly outward in an almost cantilevered stance, while the back inclines with measured angle. The seat sits low, at 38 cm from the floor, and the vertical rhythm of the back panel, a colonnade of rush bundles, sets against the curved continuity of the frame. The matching stools repeat the same grammar in miniature: bent frame, rush seat, H-stretcher.

The frame is made of solid steam-bent ash, with a warm amber patina and open grain. The back is filled with a vertical series of tubular rush bundles, each wound around a central core and set between the upper and lower rails of the back frame; it is an unusual solution, departing from conventional flat rush weaving in favour of a columnar articulation. The seat returns to the traditional four-sector rush weave, with the diagonal corner sections clearly visible from above. Below, an H-stretcher ties the four legs through a single central member. The stools carry the same bent frame and the same rush seat.

Emanuele Rambaldi, a Ligurian painter and designer active in the Gruppo di Albisola and the Novecento movement in Liguria, extended his work to furniture and interior design during the 1930s, pursuing a synthesis of the rationalist sensibility of the decade with the craft vocabulary of the region. Guido Chiappe, a manufacturer based in the Chiavari area, produced this set after his design. The result stands precisely at the meeting point of two traditions: bent wood and rush as legacies of the Chiavari chairmaking school, and a formal language that is distinctly modern by 1930s Italian standards, essential, structural, without applied ornament.

Professionally restored and re-woven by our in-house atelier. The frames have been consolidated and refinished while retaining the original amber patina; the rush, both the vertical bundles of the back and the seat weave, has been entirely redone using traditional technique. The structure is stable, the joinery sound.

Dimensions of the armchairs: Height 80.5 cm (31.7 in) x Width 59 cm (23.2 in) x Depth 73 cm (28.7 in), seat height 38 cm (15 in)
Dimensions of the stools: Height 42 cm (16.5 in) x Width 50 cm (19.7 in) x Depth 50 cm (19.7 in)