ATTRIBUTED TO R.J. HORNER & COMPANY (W. 1886-1915), NEW YORK CITY, CIRCA 1890

Exhibiting almost identical decorative detailing, this bedroom suite is closely related to a desk and chair labelled by R.J. Horner and Company of New York City and now in the collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The suite offered here and the labelled items feature similarities in small details such as the spherical finials, galleried and pierced ornament and drawer surrounds and clearly indicate the work of the same company. First working for a lace dealer, Robert J. Horner established a furniture-retail business in 1886 on East 23rd Street in New York. Popularized by its display at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the Japanese aesthetic greatly influenced late 19th-century European and American design. Horner first advertised imitation bamboo made of maple in 1890 and continued to do so throughout the ensuing decade (see Pierce, Art and Enterprise: American Decorative Art, 1825-1917, The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection (Atlanta, 1999), cat. 120, pp. 230-231).