Charles Rohlfs

This library table, which was designed to function also as a partner's desk, comes from the early period of Charles Rohlfs' furniture.  What came to be heralded as the "Rohlfs Style" reached maturity in his 1900 and 1901 furniture.  Particularly notable in Rohlfs' early designs is his assimilation and reinterpretation of widely-ranging motif systems, manifested in this case in Moorish, Scandinavian, Germanic and Japanese influences.  The table's powerful rectilinear structure, with exposed tenons and massive top, is exceptionally well-crafted and exhibits the hallmarks of his work, including the careful selection of wood, dark stain, green interior finish, harmonious proportions, organic tendril carving, sinuous cut-outs, decorative wooden nail-heads and the red-stained "sign of the saw" cypher.  Within Rohlfs' oeuvre, this table is closely related to an elaborately carved folding screen from 1900 (High Museum of Art, Atlanta); an early hall bench (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); and a chiffonier illustrated in period coverage of Rohlfs' work (Kunst und Kunsthandwerk, March 1902; Women’s Home Companion, June 1902).  In 1901, Rohlfs participated to great acclaim at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, which earned him his place as the only American furniture maker to be invited to participate in the Turin exposition of 1902.

Other examples from Rohlfs' early period can be found in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago; Carnegie Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

This library table represents the only known example of this design.