Rohlfs chair

[Dan Mitchell]

Check out this chair: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200605A29.html There's a video of the appraisal on the right.

Way cool.

[Dan Hintz]

Cool looking piece... I could see owning that with the right interior to go with it. Heck of a find...

[glenn bradley]

By random chance I was at LOML's when that episode was on. Wonderful chair. Surprised owner. Sweet.

[Dan Mitchell]

I wasn't familiar with Rohlfs, so I looked him up, Wikipedia has this to say:

"Charles Rohlfs (1853 – June 30, 1936), was an American actor, artist and designer of furniture. Rohlfs is a representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and is most famous for his skill as a furniture maker.

As a Furniture Maker

Rohlfs began designing furniture soon after his marriage in 1884 to crime novelist Anna Katharine Green. Before allowing the marriage, his father-in-law, a lawyer, demanded Rohlfs give up acting. Rohlfs then began designing furniture and found worldwide recognition. After an exhibition in Turin in 1902, Rohlfs was given membership to the Royal Society of Arts in London and was commissioned to produce furniture for Buckingham Palace, London. He died in Buffalo, New York.

They had one daughter and two sons, Roland Rohlfs and Sterling Rohlfs, who were both test pilots; Sterling died in a crash in 1928."

Interesting guy.

They maintain above and in the appraisal that Rohlfs was "Arts and Crafts", but the Roadshow chair and most of his other pieces I have seen online, while perhaps having some A&C aspects & in some cases using quarter sawn oak, look a lot more Art Nouveau to me. Look for example at this pic. A&C in material & tone perhaps, but much more ornate, and in particular, check out the viney splat. Classic Art Nouveau:


img_tall-back-chair.jpg


The Milwaukee Art Museum is having an exhibit of 40 or so pieces of Rohlfs http://www.mam.org/american/charles_rohlfs.php. Hope it comes to Seattle.

[Jonathan Spool]

$80,000?
Kaching!