Emile Ruhlmann (attrib) Lacquer Top Table from the collection of noted collector and respected gallery owner, Kenneth Dukoff of Niagara Falls, NY
Rectangular Lacquer Top Table Attrib. to Emile Ruhlmann. the top pof the table is inset with black and gold lacquer finished in a basket weave pattern with foliage in each corner. The table has gilt highlights on the top and running down the cabriolet formed legs. Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann is recognized as the master of art nouveau and art deco furniture design. Ruhlmann was born in Paris on August 28, 1879 to Alsatian parents that owned a painting and contracting firm. Ruhlmann spent most of his youth learning his father’s trade during which time he made contact with several young architects and designers. These contacts would be Ruhlmann’s first look into the world of furniture.

In 1907 upon his father’s death, Ruhlmann took over the family business. Around 1910, a newly married Ruhlmann had his first experience designing furniture for their new apartment. This was also the first year in which he exhibited his furniture publicly. In 1919 he founded a separate interior design company with Pierre Laurent; the company designed everything from wallpaper to rugs, light fixtures and furniture.
Ruhlmann's early designs reflected the Art Nouveau influence popular in France at the turn of the century. Later his influences could be traced to architects and designers creating innovative furniture in Vienna around the time of the First World War.Contrary to popular thought, Ruhlmann did not work with his hands and had no formal training in the making of cabinets or furniture. In fact, all of his work was done by outside cabinet shops until 1923 when he assembled his own cabinetmaking shop.

By 1927, Ruhlmann’s shop had grown to two locations employing 27 master cabinetmakers, four finishers, a dozen upholsterers, a few apprentice cabinetmakers and twenty-five draftsmen. While collaborating with his cabinetmakers, he constantly pushed them to not be confined by their craft. He would not accept that any detail of his design could not be executed. Rather he made his cabinetmakers start over and over until they got it right, when he exclaimed “Don’t touch a thing, it’s perfect.”

Ruhlmann’s work far exceeded the costly materials and consummate workmanship that he touted. Although his pieces were exorbitant in price, Ruhlmann admitted to a journalist: “Each piece of furniture that I deliver costs me on average 20 or 25 percent more than what I charged for it. Over the past trading year (1923) I have lost 300,000 francs net. The reason for me to resist, to persist in creating furniture that costs me money instead of being profitable, is that I still have faith in the future, and that I run another business with safe return, and whose profits fill up the holes that I am digging in the moon.”
approx. 18"D x 27"W x 18.5"H



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some cracking to the lacquer