Alsation artist and craftsman Charles Spindler designed the present model chair for the dining room in the German section at the 1902 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, Turin. Born in 1865, in Bœrsch in the region of Alsace, Spindler studied painting and design in Germany, before opening his own workshop in Saint-Léonard, a small village near Strasbourg. In 1893, Spindler began creating pictures using marquetry. He soon integrated his marquetry into furniture designs, which featured an extensive range of woods selected for their different colours and grains. The present chair illustrates Spindler’s mastery in the technique, which he applied to a vernacular chair form. In 1900 at the Paris International Exhibition, Spindler won the German Grand Prix and French Silver medal for his designs for a music room, which included a settle and panelling now held in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Period photograph: Courtesy of Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg / Studio: International Art, vol. 27, 1903, p. 191.