In 1819, the Rhineland tanner's son Michael Thonet, then 23 years old, founded a cabinetmaker's workshop in Boppard on the Rhine. Eleven years later, he began experimenting with the bentwood technique that would later become famous thanks to him, in order to make his furniture lighter and cheaper to produce. This was the first step on the way to industrially usable design, for which the name Thonet can still be considered exemplary today, more than 150 years later. Michael Thonet soon caused a sensation with his new, delicate and elegant furniture [...]. In 1842 Thonet moved to Vienna, where he founded his own company in 1849, renamed "Gebrüder Thonet" in 1853.
Lit.: K. Mang, Thonet bentwood furniture, ed. Hans Schaumberger, Vienna 1982.