C.B. Hansen 19th-20th C.

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C.B. Hansens Etablissement, kgl. hof-møbelfabrik was a Danish furniture joinery and upholstery and decoration company (bedding, upholstery work, etc.) founded on 16 December 1830 by the royal court chair maker Christopher Bagnæs Hansen (1806-1868).

Originally it made only chairs, but grew rapidly and became from 1838 a furniture factory when C.B. Hansen was granted permission to make “veneered and inlaid furniture of fine strangers as well as of domestic woods”. In 1867, C.B. Hansen due to weakness his business to his son Charles Hansen (1836-1895) and son-in-law Lars Larsen (1821-1902), who in 1849 had become foreman at C.B. Hansen. Lars Larsen was a co-owner until 1894.

As early as the 19th century, C.B. Hansen the country’s leading company of its kind. At the World’s Fairs in London in 1851 (a neo-rococo desk) and in Paris in 1855 (an oak bookcase, which was purchased in 1879 as a bridal gift for Princess Thyra), C.B. Hansen as the important representative of Danish carpentry, as well as at the exhibition in Copenhagen in 1852.

The owner was since 1927: Mrs. J. Johansen (1881-1973). The factory closed in the post-war period (later than the 1950s).

Trap Danmark mentions in 1906 that the highest annual turnover has been approx. 600,000 DKK, and that the company employs approx. 100 workers and salaried employees.

In 1843, C.B. Hansen bought Erichsens Palæ on Kongens Nytorv (Holmens Kanal 2). In 1888, his widow, Jacobine Krause (1819-1892), sold the mansion to Kjøbenhavns Handelsbank for DKK 425,000, but the company remained in the neighboring property, Holmens Kanal 4, and also set up a factory in Adelgade 82. In 1905, the company sold Holmens Kanal 3 to Handelsbanken for DKK 300,000. Later CB moved Hansen’s Establishment to Store Kongensgade and later to Bredgade 32.