Vladimir Kagan for Kagan-Dreyfuss Inc. Model '6999' Loveseat, Chenille, 1950's

What you're looking at is a suoer Vladimir Kagan Model 6999 loveseat ~ the shorter, more intimate sibling of the full 6999 sofa. Produced during what collectors consider the absolute golden era of Kagan's output, the Kagan-Dreyfuss years.

At 62" wide, she's not trying to fill the whole room. She doesn't need to. She curves gently, wraps her arms around you like she's known you for years. Perched on those gorgeous dark walnut T-shaped legs like she's barely touching the ground, and proceeds to become the most interesting thing in every room she's ever been in. She has done this her entire life and she'll do it in yours.

The form is Kagan's "Sloane", a continuous backrest that sweeps diagonally into the armrests without so much as asking permission, creating that sense of movement that made Kagan the designer everyone else spent the next 70 years trying to imitate.

Freshly reupholstered in a lush, low-pile beige chenille ~ the kind of neutral that isn't boring, it's strategic. She's 100% ready for her next chapter. The walnut base is rich, dark, and deeply satisfying. This is not a project. This is a move-in-ready icon.

She's compact enough to be an accent piece and substantial enough to anchor a room. Float her in the center of a study and let people walk circles around her.

Born in Worms, Germany in 1927, Vladimir Kagan fled the rise of Nazism with his family, eventually landing in New York where his father — a Russian master cabinetmaker — opened a shop that young Vladimir promptly learned everything from and then cheerfully blew past. After studying architecture at Columbia, he opened his first showroom on East 65th Street at age 22, inviting artists like Louise Nevelson to exhibit alongside his furniture because he always understood that what he was making was, in fact, art.
In 1950, with the financial backing of Hugo Dreyfuss, a retired textile manufacturer, Kagan opened the Kagan-Dreyfuss showroom on fashionable East 57th Street — a partnership that would last ten years. It is widely regarded as the most creatively fertile decade of his career. The clients who found their way to that showroom included Marilyn Monroe, the United Nations, and enough well-heeled New Yorkers to confirm that Kagan had identified something the rest of the furniture world hadn't yet: that people didn't want to sit on their sofa. They wanted to sit with it. While other designers seemed to be designing with suburban households in mind, Kagan aimed to suit the tastes of young, sophisticated city-dwellers. He made furniture sexy. He kept making it until 2016, when he passed at age 88, leaving behind a legacy so thoroughly imitated it's practically a genre.

This loveseat is from the good years. The Kagan-Dreyfuss years. The years when it all started.

If your taste runs toward the collected and intentional-- if your wall has a Paul Evans brutalist cabinet, your entryway, a Karl Springer console or your coffee table is Gabriella Crespi, then you already know what this sofa is. You've been looking for it.

The design world has been catching up to Kagan for decades. This sofa is a very, very rare example of Kagan's work. I've been running a gallery now for 16 years and this is the only one I've ever crossed paths with.

Dimensions: 62"W × 32"D × 26"H
Materials: Beige low-pile chenille, restored walnut base
Condition: Professionally restored and reupholstered. Ready for its next fifty years.