Treasures in your attic: 1930s Rhode desk sought after in today’s market

Q. This desk has been in my family for at least 50 years. An inscription in the middle drawer reads: “This piece is one of a limited group designed by Gilbert Rhode.” Underneath is a Rhode signature. Beneath this is a metal tab bearing the image of a knight with the name “Cavalier” below. Any help you can provide me as to the history and value of this desk will be greatly appreciated.

A. Gilbert Rhode is considered an important pioneer of American Modernism.

He was born in 1894, the son of a New York City cabinetmaker. As a young man, Rhode studied at the Art Students League and the Grand Central School of Art. For a time, he drew political cartoons for the Bronx News, and, in 1923, took a job with Abraham and Strauss, a department store, as an illustrator.

Shortly thereafter, Rhode took a trip to Germany and France, visiting the Bauhaus and the Paris Exhibition. This trip influenced Rhode greatly and he returned home determined to become a designer. He was inspired to envision furniture that embodied the Bauhaus purity of form, accented with simple yet sophisticated Art Deco elements.

Rhode’s designs combined rich, exotic hardwoods with new materials such as chrome, Lucite, Plexiglas, Bakelite and Fabrikoid (a leatherlike fabric made by DuPont). The privations of the Great Depression were an obstacle for Rhode, but Heywood-Wakefield picked up one of his designs for a bentwood chair in 1930.

Rhode turned his talents to the American furniture-making hub in Grand Rapids, Mich., and attracted the attention of Herman Miller. The company had been manufacturing historical reproductions and traditional pieces, but was reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy when it began adopting Rhode’s more-modern designs.

His designs are said to have rescued Herman Miller, and, in 1933, he entered into an exclusive contract with the company. The desk in today’s question, however, was not made by Herman Miller, but by a company based in Chattanooga, Tenn., that started corporate life in 1865 as a sawmill.

It started making furniture as a way to use up flawed pieces of wood that would not have been sellable otherwise and called itself the Tennessee Furniture Company. In 1923, it adopted the trade name of Cavalier, and the image of the knight that you mention first occurred in 1924.

Interestingly, the company had bought the Odorless Refrigeration Company in 1905, and the Cavalier name is now most often associated with the Coca-Cola coolers and vending machines the firm made for many years. But in the furniture line, Rhode’s designs as well as the designs of others were marketed under the Cavalier name as well.

This wonderful desk was probably made circa 1931-32, before Rhode worked with Herman Miller. It is a highly desirable piece on the current market and should be valued for insurance purposes in the $3,000 to $5,000 range depending on the condition.

Ÿ Contact Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson at Treasures in Your Attic, P.O. Box 18350, Knoxville, TN 37928.