Perhaps the most renowned French designer of his day, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann is considered the primary exponent of high-style French taste following World War I. Aesthetic refinement, sumptuous materials, and impeccable construction techniques place his work on a par with the finest eighteenth-century furniture—a formal and ornamental source for many of his designs.
This cabinet was commissioned from Ruhlmann by The Met in 1925. It is a variant of a similar cabinet shown the same year at the Paris exposition that was purchased by the French state, hence the model name État (State). Ruhlmann sometimes produced more than one example of his furniture models, varying the details of form and surface decoration according to the requirements of a commission. The complex pattern of the marquetry decoration (created from interlocking pieces of wood and ivory veneer) is reminiscent of a jigsaw puzzle.
Ruhlmann was known as an ensemblier. Not only did he produce furniture, but he also could fabricate complete interiors, creating rooms which achieved a harmony of colors, textures, materials, and workmanship. Ensembliers differed from today’s interior decorators in that, instead of composing their interiors by bringing together existing objects and materials from different sources, they both designed and made (or commissioned to be made) everything they needed in order to achieve their effects. They could design not only houses but everything—down to the doorknobs—that went into them, so that no single element would offend the eye because it was inconsistent with the whole.
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Dimensions:50 1/2 × 33 1/4 × 14 in., 84 lb. (128.2 × 84.4 × 35.6 cm, 38.1 kg)
Classification:Furniture
Credit Line:Purchase, Edward C. Moore Jr. Gift, 1925
Accession Number:25.231.1
Inscription: Signed and inscribed (back at top of frame, branded): Ruhlmann / O.
Ruhlmann et Laurent, Paris (commissioned in 1925 by MMA)
Baltimore. Walters Art Gallery. "Art Nouveau to Art Moderne: Twentieth-Century Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," March 2–April 28, 1985, no catalogue.
Raleigh. North Carolina Museum of Art. "Art Nouveau to Art Moderne: Twentieth-Century Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 22–August 11, 1985, unnum. brochure (as "Cabinet").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art Deco and Modernism: Style Versus Idea," June 25, 1991–February 16, 1992, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Significant Objects," November 26, 2002–May 2, 2004, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Ruhlmann: Genius of Art Deco," June 10–September 5, 2004, no. 28.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. "Ruhlmann: Genius of Art Deco," September 30–December 12, 2004, no. 28.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Modern Design," March 30–December 3, 2006, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Modern Design: Selections from the Collection," May 30–October 5, 2008, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of French Art Deco," August 4, 2009–January 23, 2011, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (fig. 173).
Joseph Breck. "Modern Decorative Arts: Some Recent Purchases." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 21 (February 1926), p. 38.
Joseph Breck. "Accessions and Notes: Furniture by Ruhlmann." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 21 (March 1926), p. 88.
Penelope Hunter. "Art Déco: The Last Hurrah." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 30 (June–July 1972), p. 267.
Penelope Hunter. "Art Deco and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Connoisseur 179 (April 1972), p. 273.
Penelope Hunter-Stiebel. "The Decorative Arts of the Twentieth Century." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 37 (Winter 1979–1980), p. 25.
Penelope Hunter-Stiebel. The Fine Art of the Furniture Maker. Rochester, N.Y., 1981, pp. 92–98.
Karen Davies. At Home in Manhattan: Modern Decorative Arts, 1925 to the Depression. Exh. cat., Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, 1983, p. 17, no. 2, ill. (Sydney and Frances Lewis collection).
Gary Tinterow et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 8, Modern Europe. New York, 1987, p. 130, colorpl. 108.
Barbara Burn, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. 2nd rev. ed. (1st ed., 1983). New York, 1994, p. 465, no. 60, ill. (color).
Romy Golan. Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France Between the Wars. New Haven, 1995, p. 91, fig. 93 (color), erroneously identified as in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Ghenete Zelleke inRuhlmann: Genius of Art Deco. Ed. Emmanuel Bréon and Rosalind Pepall. Exh. cat., Musée des Années 30. Paris, 2004, pp. 152–57, 291.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2012, p. 408, ill. (color).
Stephen Harrison inInventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World's Fairs, 1851–1939. Exh. cat., Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Pittsburgh, 2012, p. 221, fig. 54 (color).
Jared Goss. French Art Deco. New York, 2014, pp. 196–98, 249 n. 2, p. 262, no. 55, ill. (color).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2019, p. 408, ill. (color).
Douglas Eklund, Marilyn F. Friedman, and Randall R. Griffey inMaking The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 161, 253, fig. 173 (color).
Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann (French, Paris 1879–1933 Paris)
ca. 1917
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