[Aaron Henkin] When this desk was made in the 1890s, there was a craze for bamboo furniture. It was part of the late 19th century fascination with all things Japanese. But this desk isn't made from lightweight bamboo. It's made from very hard, dense wood. Here's curator, David Park Curry. [David Park Curry] When you look at the shape, it's quite awkward, but it's very much derived from real bamboo furniture. That's actually hard maple in what we call Birdseye maple. By the 1876 Centennial Fair, Japanese art was becoming very important to Western designers in the United States, and hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to something that was for them, radically new, new material. So part of the thrill of seeing a piece like this would be the really fairly rapid recognition that those turn feet, that are bent, just like a piece of Asian bamboo furniture would be bent, are solid and they're crisp in their heart. So it is kind of like having fun with material, I think.

[Aaron Henkin] Here's an enthusiastic article about the new art furniture that could be seen at the showrooms of the desk's manufacturer RJ Horner and Company. This article ran in the New York Times in 1893: [Speaker 2] Furniture of All the Finest, some remarkable handsome examples to be seen at RJ Horner and Company. In these days when art is making such rapid strides in so many different directions, there's no reason why every American home with any pretension should not be fitted up with the best taste. And when it is furniture making that is the particular art considered, one can do no better if the fact is to be proved than pay a visit to the establishment of RJ Horner and Company 61, 63 and 65 West 23rd Street. Here on exhibition, some delightful examples showing to what an extent this artist progressed. One walks a made a collection of delightful conceits. There are specimens of the very finest household effects of ancient and modern pattern.