Grille

Designerdesigned by Samuel Yellin (American, born in Russian Empire (now Ukraine), 1884 - 1940)

Collections

American Decorative Arts

ClassificationsDECORATIVE ARTS

Date1915

Mediumwrought iron

Dimensionsoverall: 25 x 16 x 4 1/2 in. (63.5 x 40.6 x 11.4 cm.)

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation in honor of Ellen and Harvey Knell

Status

On view

Label TextBorn and trained in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), Samuel Yellin became America's most important ironworker within a decade of his arrival in Philadelphia, around 1905. He worked with many of the most prominent architects of the day and a wide variety of clients, including wealthy businesspeople, public leaders and tastemakers, as well as banks, universities and churches. This decorative iron grille is a study made for Stan Hywet Hall, a grand, English-Tudor manor house built for Frank and Gertrude Seiberling in Akron, Ohio, between 1912 and 1915. Frank Seiberling was an early industrialist and co-founder of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The house became one of Yellin's most important early commissions, which allowed him to create a variety of architectural and decorative ironwork, modernizing medieval European designs for a new context. The vertical branching vines of the grille are an innovation on French design, a pattern which appears on Yellin's ironwork in other parts of the house. The grille features gently curving tendrils and leaves, delicate rosettes, and vertical rods terminating in dragon's-head finials and feet. The Huntington has two important pieces by Samuel Yellin in the collection: this decorative grille and an iron Inkwell (2008.24), from Yellin's personal collection.

Object number2008.16