Cor Bontenbal for Fristho Franeker — Pair of 'EJ' Rosewood Side Chairs, Netherlands, c.1962
A pair of rosewood side chairs, model EJ, produced by Fristho Franeker in the Netherlands around 1962. The design is attributed to the Fristho design team, with Cor Bontenbal among the designers associated with this period of the company's output — a time when Fristho was producing some of the most considered furniture to come out of the Dutch mid-century modern movement.
The EJ chair is immediately legible as a product of that moment: light in silhouette, sculptural in the hand, and confident in its use of material. The frame is solid rosewood — a timber of exceptional density and figure, with a grain ranging from deep chocolate to lighter, expressive figuring — carefully selected and matched to enhance the sculptural quality of the design. The gently curved top rail, tapered legs, and shaped seat together give the chair a quality that rewards close attention. It has frequently been noted for its resemblance to the No. 77 chair by Niels O. Møller — the comparison is apt, and speaks to the level at which Fristho was working.
Sold as a pair.
About Fristho & Cor Bontenbal
Fristho Franeker was a Dutch furniture manufacturer based in Franeker, in the Frisian region of the Netherlands. Founded in 1921, the company spent its early decades producing traditional furniture before undergoing a decisive transformation in the early 1950s, when it began attracting a new generation of designers — including the American William Watting, the German Rudolf Glatzel, and the Danish designer Inger Klingenberg — whose Scandinavian-influenced work set the company on a new course.
The most significant appointment came in 1956, when Fristho engaged the Chinese-Dutch designer Kho Liang Ie and graphic designer Wim Crouwel to steer the company toward a modernist vision defined by innovation, restraint, and quality materials. Cor Bontenbal worked within this culture, contributing to the Fristho design team during the company's most productive and collectible period — the late 1950s and early 1960s — when pieces like the EJ dining chair and the Impala lounge chair were produced.
Fristho is among the names that defined Dutch mid-century modernism, alongside Bovenkamp, Galvanitas, and Raak — manufacturers whose work, though not always widely canonised, has endured through the sustained interest of collectors and design enthusiasts. The factory closed in 1978, making original pieces from the classic era increasingly scarce.
Literature B. Looper (2014), Fristho 'Vooruitstrevende Meubelen' 1921–1978: mid-century modern in Nederland, Uitgeverij Bornmeer, Netherlands — illustrated p. 63
