As auctioned by Wright
Teneride Chair by Mario Bellini
I had taken some photo’s from this chair at the Milan Triennale Design Museum last September, not knowing exactly what to think of this extraordinary chair, until Wright had it on auction on June 7, 2012:
185
Mario Bellini
Teneride chair
Cassina
Italy, 1970
molded polyurethane, lacquered wood, lacquered fiberglass
26.25 w x 25.5 d x 35.5 h inchesMade from a single piece of molded polyurethane, this experimental chair was technically difficult to create and was never put into production.
Estimate: $7,000–9,000
Result: $35,000
And now I’m more confused: Was the one I photographed a prototype? This prototype, or are there more prototypes?
Very interesting post. Maybe there are some prototypes with minimal changes …
regards
Jürgen
Hello Guido!
The Teneride chair , as you wrote, were never put into production but the company, in this case Cassina, that intend to do so often use to make a small number of pre production models with all their designs. So even if a piece of furniture never reach the production line there are almost always a small number pieces made and some of them tend to, over the years, come on the market. In this case I do not know how many chairs were made but since it´s in a few collections and the Teneride tend to, if very very seldom, come up at auction my guess is that Cassina must have produced at least 10 chairs or probably more. It´s rare and a true classic and I would love to have it in my own collection.
Regards,
Andreas (auction expert and chair collector)
Thank you Andreas for your thoughts.
In the meantime I noticed DeTnk confirmed that Cassina sold some preproduction models via Wright.