A unique settee, circa 1900

Famed for his partnership with the silversmith Georg Jensen later in his life, Johan Rohde had started his career as an artist and co-founded a series of influential all-encompassing art exhibitions which deliberately challenged the established Danish art scene. In 1897, seeking a fresh stimulus, he turned his artistic attentions to furniture design and went on to create works of a pared-down, pure style where any decoration only served to delicately augment the deliberated treatment of line and form, rather than challenge or dominate it. His furniture was exhibited internationally, including at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, and examples of his work are found in the Design Museum, Denmark. The rare settee presented here, and the early armchairs (accompanied with an original annotated pencil design drawing) which follow showcase the considered simplicity of his designs, which precursor modernist designers of the later 20th century.