Dolphin Lounge Chair

With a vast inventory of beautiful furniture at 1stDibs, we’ve got just the dolphin lounge chair you’re looking for. A dolphin lounge chair — often made from wood, fabric and animal skin — can elevate any home. Find 32 options for an antique or vintage dolphin lounge chair now, or shop our selection of 1 modern versions for a more contemporary example of this long-cherished piece. Whether you’re looking for an older or newer dolphin lounge chair, there are earlier versions available from the 18th Century and newer variations made as recently as the 21st Century. A dolphin lounge chair is a generally popular piece of furniture, but those created in Empire, Hollywood Regency and mid-century modern styles are sought with frequency. You’ll likely find more than one dolphin lounge chair that is appealing in its simplicity, but Arflex, Century Furniture and Erberto Carboni produced versions that are worth a look.

A dolphin lounge chair can differ in price owing to various characteristics — the average selling price 1stDibs is $7,000, while the lowest priced sells for $695 and the highest can go for as much as $135,251.

While this specific seating is known to all for its comfort and familiar form, the history of how your favorite antique or vintage lounge chair came to be is slightly more ambiguous.

Although there are rare armchairs dating back as far as the 17th century, some believe that the origins of the first official “lounge chair” are tied to Hungarian modernist designer-architect Marcel Breuer. Sure, Breuer wasn’t exactly reinventing the wheel when he introduced the Wassily lounge chair in 1925, but his seat was indeed revolutionary for its integration of bent tubular steel.

Officially, a lounge chair is simply defined as a “comfortable armchair,” which allows for the shape and material of the furnishings to be extremely diverse. Whether or not chaise longues make the cut for this category is a matter of frequent debate.

The Eames lounge chair, on the other hand, has come to define somewhat of a universal perception of what a lounge chair can be. Introduced in 1956, the Eames lounger (and its partner in cozy, the ottoman) quickly became staples in television shows, prestigious office buildings and sumptuous living rooms. Venerable American mid-century modern designers Charles and Ray Eames intended for it to be the peak of luxury, which they knew meant taking furniture to the next level of style and comfort. Their chair inspired many modern interpretations of the lounge — as well as numerous copies.

On 1stDibs, find a broad range of unique lounge chairs that includes everything from antique Victorian-era seating to vintage mid-century modern lounge chairs by craftspersons such as Hans Wegner to contemporary choices from today’s innovative designers.