Witteveen kinderstoel

Gerrit Rietveld made this high-chair in late 1921–early 1922 for the young Hendrikus Johannes Witteveen, the later Minister of Finance and managing director of the IMF. Rietveld based his work on a model from 1918. That design, a high-chair painted in red and two shades of green, was his first piece of furniture featured in the magazine De Stijl. The continuous surfaces lend the design a rather closed appearance. However, the use of dowel joints, in which the elements of the construction simply adjoin one another, already reveals Rietveld’s interest in increasing the sense of space in his designs. The first high-chair from 1918 has been lost, so this example, which was found in 2006, is the only piece that marks the transition from Rietveld’s early work to his famous slat furniture. The slatted chair assumed its final form in 1923, in the colours red, blue and yellow. That came a little later than this high-chair, which therefore reveals more about Rietveld’s way of working shortly before he created the now iconic Red and Blue Chair.