Hall Chair

This chair with its pierced and carved back panel, thin seat, and improbably slender legs and posts is as individualistic as its maker, Charles Rohlfs. In the late 1880s this actor, artist, and cast-iron stove designer began to make furniture for his Buffalo residence, and later for friends and other clients. Rohlfs produced multiple versions of this tall-back hall chair, each with variations in the cutout shapes ornamenting the legs, seat and crest rail, and the carved decoration. He was inspired by many design sources, including plants and other natural forms. At the base of the carved back panel, a vegetal bulb sprouts stems with unfurling leaves and fruits against a screen of bone-like spindles. Rohlfs's furniture was recognized for its distinctive forms and fanciful carving, and was shown in several important exhibitions, including the 1902 Turin Exposition of Decorative Arts and the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.