Chair

This desk chair designed by the partnership of Charles Rohlfs and Anna Katharine Green is extraordinarily modernistic and forward thinking in design. Its dramatic and graceful form is brilliantly foiled by the complex pierced and carved surfaces. Subtleties such as the parabolic-shaped seat, delicate cross bracing, and complicated trapezoidal legs further distinguish this important early work of their oeuvre. The chair, one of the artists’ personal favorites, presents something entirely different from much of their work and is quite simply, probably their most important piece. Although the form has loose prototypes in the tall Strozzi chair in the Met’s collection, with its form resting on three legs, shaped seat, and tall narrow tapered back, which also takes full advantage of the veining of the wood for its aesthetic effect, it is arguably the Rohlfs’s most inventive design. In fact it is almost modernistic in the forward-thinking of the design. The meticulous carving on the back is perhaps one of the most unusual features. Its asymmetrical organic pattern is a representation of the cellular structure of oak as seen under magnification. The couple’s interest in microscopes derives from Green’s interest in crime-scene forensic evidence, which she incorporated in her mystery novel, one of the first to do so. The couple’s admiration for the beauty of wood grain may have led to their experiments and the creation of this imaginative chair based on microscopic imagery. The chair’s structure and decorative motif brilliantly combine Rohlfs’ skills in carving and design and Green’s interest in science.