'Elling' Sideboard, designed 1919, executed circa 1974

Designed in 1919 just two year after the introduction of his famous Red-Blue chair, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld debuted this extraordinary sideboard in oak. It was displayed in 1920 at the Voor de Kunst in Utrecht and purchased there by the Dutch architect Piet Elling (1897-1962). This early example was tragically destroyed by fire. The model was re-introduced in 1958 and made in a very limited quantity by one of Rietveld’s most trusted cabinetmakers, Gerard van de Groenekan (1904-1994). Groenekan began working for Rietveld as a sixteen-year old and eventually took over the woodworking facility in 1928 when Rietveld decided to focus on a career in architecture.

The Elling sideboard is truly iconic and brilliantly captures the most dynamic period in Rietveld's development as a designer. The world was in intellectual and artistic tumult at the conclusion of World War I and Rietveld skillfully revealed that chaos through his furniture. Influenced by the emerging De Stijl movement and contemporary Cubist art, Rietveld attempted to embrace a conceptual abstraction that adopted a more streamlined personality highlighted by a bold use of line, plane and structure. This notion of ambient deconstructed imagery found material synergy with the works of several contemporary Dutch artists, including Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. Less known than the Red-Blue chair, this sideboard is every bit its equal in establishing Rietveld's position as a legendary designer.

Frederieke Sanders Taylor (1940-2018), the previous owner of this cabinet, was an eclectic collector, curator, and gallery owner. A native of Holland, she arrived in the United States in the 1960s, and curated several important exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (NY). In 1993 she opened her own art gallery in Soho and presented works that explored the intersection between fine art and architecture.