Chair & tabouret for Philippe Wolfers ^{± 1900}

At the end of his life, the Brussels art-nouveau architect Paul Hankar was commissioned to design a country house for his friend Philippe Wolfers. Together with his brother Max and their cousin Albert, Wolfers had purchased a property in Terhulpen where they each had a cottage built and Philippe also a studio. Hankar designed the smoking room of Villa Les Glycines (‘wisterias’) in a Japanese-inspired style. The woven leather bands of the seat and back, the moulded wooden joints and the combination of dark- and light-coloured wood sorts constitute the Eastern elements in this chair and stool. That Japanese influence was also noticeable in the railings of the residence and in the garden. For the composition of the furniture, Hankar was moreover indebted to the neo-Flemish Renaissance and to the rationalism of the French architect Eugène Viollet-Le-Duc.

SOURCES

François Loyer, Paul Hankar. La naissance de l’art nouveau, AAM, Bruxelles, 1986, pp. 196-202;
Ko Goubert, Meesterlijk (zilver)design. De Wolfersverzameling (Cahier 3), Designcentrum Vlaanderen, Gent, 2012, pp. 102-106; Met dank aan Marie Becuwe.