Panel from the Rothschild Building, Chicago
Designer Louis Henry Sullivan American
Dankmar Adler American
The most famous Chicago architect, after his one-time draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), Louis Sullivan worked for Dankmar Adler as a designer between 1879 and 1883. Sullivan is credited with playing an integral role in the design of the Rothschild Building, which served as a salesroom and manufacturing plant for E. Rothschild and Brothers, a clothing firm. Although missing a central floret, the cast-iron panel is a powerful example of Sullivan’s early decorative vocabulary. Its bold, highly stylized organic forms, unlike anything produced by his American contemporaries, clearly indicate Sullivan’s familiarity with the writings of the era’s leading European design theorists.
