Tall Candle Stand

An important designer during the Arts and Crafts Movement, Charles Rohlfs began making furniture as a hobby while pursuing an acting career before turning to furniture-making professionally. Rohlfs trained at the Cooper Union and worked as a patternmaker for an iron foundry. He moved from New York City to Buffalo to work for the Sherman S. Jewett Company, where he honed his woodworking and design skills. After traveling to Europe with his wife, novelist Anna Katharine Green, the couple embraced the House Beautiful movement, which celebrated the hand-made over industrial production within the domestic sphere, and Rohlfs filled their home with his hand-crafted furniture. Friends and acquaintances appreciated the furniture’s distinctive designs and in response, Rohlfs began making furniture professionally around 1898. He was particularly influenced by Medieval designs and embraced the Arts and Crafts Movement’s emphasis on exposed joinery and hammered metalwork, which drew attention to the hand-crafted nature and materials of the object. Rohlfs believed each piece of furniture was a work of art. This candlestand was made during a period in his career when he was creating more modest pieces that were useful and affordable as well as decorative. The candlestand features clean, straight lines in a modernist aesthetic. Rohlfs hoped to reach a broader market with designs like this one. His efforts appear to have been only moderately successful.