Brass Chiavari Chair and Stool with Green Velvet Seats, Italian Work, circa 1940

This distinguished ensemble comprising a brass Chiavari chair and a matching stool, with seats upholstered in green velvet, represents a refined interpretation of one of Italy’s most celebrated furniture forms. The Chiavari chair, originating in the Ligurian city of the same name in the early nineteenth century, became one of the most widely produced and admired chair forms in the world, its slender proportions, open lattice back, and elegant simplicity winning admirers across two centuries of changing taste.

This example elevates the classic Chiavari design through the substitution of brass for the traditional wood frame—a sumptuous departure that transforms an everyday chair form into an object of genuine decorative ambition. Each element of the characteristic silhouette is preserved—the slender turned legs, the open lattice back, the compact seat—but rendered in gleaming brass that catches the light with an aristocratic warmth. The matching stool, upholstered en suite in green velvet, completes the ensemble with quiet authority.

The pairing of brass and green velvet situates these pieces firmly within the tradition of Italian luxury craftsmanship of the interwar period, when the great workshops of Rome, Florence, and Venice produced furniture of extraordinary material refinement for the palaces, grand hotels, and private villas of the Italian élite. The green velvet, deep and lustrous, provides a foil to the golden warmth of the brass, creating a combination of great chromatic sophistication.

A rare and distinguished ensemble in excellent condition. Chair: W. 41.5 × D. 41.5 × H. 92.5 cm.