Mark Brazier Jones Atlantis Limited Edition Bronze & Velvet Sofas with Footstool

Mark Brazier-Jones emerged as a designer-maker in the early 1980s as part of Creative Salvage, a pioneering collective that included Tom Dixon, where they welded together furniture and objects from scrap metal and recycled elements . By the end of the decade, Brazier-Jones's signature style had fully emerged—a sophisticated combination of historicist motifs and rich materials .

The Atlantis Chair, designed in 1988, became his most successful design, drawing oblique yet evocative references to grand French Empire furniture of the early nineteenth century, which was often decorated with cast gilt bronze mounts derived from animal forms . These influences manifest dramatically in the chair's winged arms and front legs shaped to resemble the hind legs of an animal, tapering to distinctive "hoofed" feet, while the curved rear legs recall the shape of sabres—a convention found on Empire furniture .

Between 1989 and 1994, Brazier-Jones produced a strictly limited edition of the Atlantis Chair: 100 cast bronze examples and 100 cast in aluminium . The chair is a true sculptural hybrid, with its cast metal frame supporting a seat cushion and back bolster—typically upholstered in luxurious silk, velvet, leather, or even zebra skin on certain examples . Each chair in the edition is signed, numbered, and dated by the artist, with numbering schemes varying across the production run (e.g., 6/50, 47/50, B24/50) .

The significance of the Atlantis Chair as a landmark of postmodern British design is underscored by its inclusion in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (accession number W.677-2001), which holds an early prototype from 1988 retained by Brazier-Jones and reupholstered in 2001 . Further testament to its design importance, the chair is also held in the permanent collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Museum of Fine Arts .

A collectible and functional work of art, the Atlantis Chair embodies Brazier-Jones's playful yet sophisticated approach to design—juxtaposing recognizable sculptural forms to create dynamic, zoomorphic hybrids . The chair has attracted a star-studded clientele including Mick Jagger and is featured prominently in design literature, including "The Furniture Machine: furniture since 1990" published by the V&A .

Whether executed in cast bronze or polished aluminium, the Atlantis Chair offers the collector a rare opportunity to own a piece of postmodern design history from an artist whose provocative works—ranging from chandeliers and mirrors to daybeds and console tables—have left an indelible mark on contemporary decorative arts