Chair maker (profession)

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Stuhlmacher is a job title for the manufacturer of chairs and armchairs.

Chair maker workshop , De STOELEMAAKER , copperplate engraving by Jan Luyken 1720

history

The chairs make the chair production, is as old as mankind. The social status could be recognized by the type of effort involved in production. The products range from stools to stools, from chairs to throne chairs. In the cities, the craft was brought together in the chairmaker's guilds early on. The trade consists mainly of woodturning , clothing (now upholstery ) and weaving activities. A brotherhood of woodturners in Cologne on the Rhine was proven as early as 1180. In Frankfurt a. M. four chair makers are registered in 1387. Tax income to be collected by the lords of the state and town for chairs was realized through the guilds. Until the 18th and 19th centuries there were compulsory guilds for carpenters and chair makers. Since the Middle Ages, however, the chair makers have also secured regional sales markets for their sometimes high-quality seating furniture. For outstanding chair makers, privileges such as royal and ducal court chair makers were awarded by the sovereigns upon request. With the end of the monarchy these titles ceased to exist. Due to the industrialization of chair production, the guilds lost their importance, as the territorial regional markets were an obstacle to the sale of large orders. The materials used to manufacture chairs are no longer characterized by wood; other materials such as metals and plastics have gained in importance in the seating furniture industry. New materials brought forth new chair forms, such as the cantilever or cantilever chair called.

  • Upholstered armchair, manufactured before 1876, princely station furniture

  • White upholstered armchair 2002 with horsehair upholstery

  • Restored armchair with a master and royal Prussian brand

family name

The professional name Stuhlmacher is known as a family name in German-speaking countries. Mentioned in Hildesheim around 1407. Family names Stuolmacher , Stölmaker , Stolmeker are identified early on .

Tool of the chair maker

The tools of the chair makers are the same as in all sub-trades of the woodworker, the clothes, the upholsterer and the weaving and carving art. Only the scraper or scraping plane is a special tool for the production chair. With their help, the fluting, the grooving and smoothing of chair parts is brought into shape.

job profile

Today the profession of chair maker is practically no longer available. The furniture industry manufactures all seating furniture with new technologies. In 1995 there was a request in the Bundestag to maintain the profession. The craft is still trained in restoration workshops and in historical preservation companies. The effort to preserve historical seating furniture is now a technically demanding activity that is rare and expensive. The restorers of antique seating furniture cooperate with still artisan upholstery shops, some of which still maintain old, original working methods.

Special chair makers

  • Matthias Ortmann (1692–1757), Danish royal court carpenter
  • Georges Jacob (1739–1814) Paris, influenced European taste at the French court, Louis Seize.
  • Rudolf Fischer (1867) Rostock, receives the patent and the title of "Ducal Court Chair Maker" from the Mecklenburg Schwerin court marshal.

literature

  • Forced guilds for carpenters and chairmakers in Schwerin, 1849 - 1945
  • Sheets on the cultural history and folklore of Southwest Mecklenburg. Next stop: Hagenow Land! History of the station between 1846 and 1933, Museum Hagenow 2009, Henry Gawlick

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Ebenstadt: The Origin of the Guild System and the Older Craftsmen Associations of the Middle Ages, page 130 . 2nd Edition. Munich - Leipzig 1915.
  2. ^ Collection of recent Mecklenburg = Schwerin laws and other documents relating to legality . tape 1 . Andler's heirs in Rostock, 1811.
  3. ↑ Rosa and Volker Kohlheim: Duden family names . Ed .: Dudenverlag. Mannheim 2005, ISBN 3-411-70852-2 .
  4. ↑ Chair maker of the Duke of Schwerin, upholstered a. a. demonstrably the seating furniture in the princely waiting and Common rooms of the princes at the stations of the Royal Prussian and Mecklenburg railway companies. Traveling exhibition: How princes traveled !; 150 years of Schwerin Castle; Princely room in Schwerin main station; Gelbensande Castle Rostock 2012; World Heritage Day 2019 Fürstenzimmer Hbf Schwerin u. a.