Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Ilmari Tapiovaara "Mademoiselle" high-back rocking chair

A Mid-Century Finnish designer you may or may not have heard of, Tapiovaara was both prolific and extremely influential. You've seen his designs all over, even if you don't know it. IKEA, for instance, copied many of his designs verbatim (gosh, the longer I do this the more I realize how little at IKEA is original design work).



This is Tapiovaara's rarely-seen "Mademoiselle" rocker, which is just pure perfection. The high back, swooping arms, and spare silhouette make her a knock-out, and very very comfortable, too. Ingeniously, the legs mounted over the tops of the rockers keep it from creaking when rocked. Besides discomfort, isn't that the biggest strike against wooden rockers?

Well honey pies, I've got one taking a Danish oil bath and getting pretty for auction tomorrow! Mine is solid hemlock, without the black paint as shown here, which feels much more "Danish" and modern to me.

Draped with a cozy sheepskin, this gets my highest recommendation as the best nursery rocker ever.

Check the storefront tomorrow evening around 7:30pm Pacific time for the auction.


photo via Deconet

13 comments:

  1. STOP IT.

    can i just um, go thrifting with you one day?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Okay, but then I'll have to kill you, and then who's going to take all the pretty pictures??

    ReplyDelete
  3. Get out of my head! I was thinking the same thing...hmmmm, ways we can exploit each others' talents...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have a couple flower print Mademoiselle chairs, but never heard of the rocker.. pretty cool looking though!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Modernism2010-is there any chance you would forward a picture? I didn't know they came in a flower print....that sounds amazing.

    I had never heard of the rocker either--I had a really tough time tracking down any information on it--they must not have been in production very long since there don't seem to be many out there.

    ReplyDelete
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  7. I have one of these rockers... got it on eBay for my first son's nursery. It's definitely old and the seller called it Danish Modern, but other than that I don't know much. Any idea what the chances are that its valuable or just a knock off? I think I paid $150.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is NOT a Tapiovaara Mademoiselle. The original one you can find www.tapiovaara.fi

    ReplyDelete
  9. Looks more like a product from Nesto (Nässjö stolfabrik). Its called Bohem. There is also a similair modell called Grandessa.

    ReplyDelete
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