Series 7

Why it is renowned

More than five million Series 7 chairs have been made, all by Fritz Hansen.¹ The Victoria and Albert Museum in London took a 3107 made by Fritz Hansen into its collection in 1970.² Its shape became widely known through Lewis Morley's 1963 photograph of Christine Keeler, though the chair in that picture was an early copy, now also in the V&A; sales of the model rose sharply after the photographs were published.³¹

The story

Arne Jacobsen designed the model 3107 in 1955 as a development of his Ant chair of 1952, using Fritz Hansen's moulded plywood;⁴ by his own account the two chairs owed a debt to the moulded plywood of Charles and Ray Eames.¹ It comes with four legs, as an office chair on five castors or as a bar stool, and with armrests, a writing tablet or upholstery.¹ The chairs stack.¹

What to know it by

• 31071955Arne JacobsenThe four-legged chair
• Ant1952Arne JacobsenThe three-legged chair it grew from