Elevator panel from the Manhattan Building, Chicago, Illinois

William LeBaron Jenney

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

William LeBaron Jenney, one of the leading architects of the Chicago School, designed the Jenney's Manhattan Building from which this panel came. The Jenney's Manhattan Building was built at 431 South Dearborn Street in Chicago. The sixteen-story structure, designed in 1889 and completed by 1891, represents one of the most important examples of early skyscraper technology and design. Most of the building's metalwork was made by the Winslow Brothers, perhaps the finest metal shop in the country at the turn of the century. This cast iron panel, which originally formed part of an elevator enclosure, has a geometric grid pattern on its lower half and semi-naturalistic stylized ornament adorning its upper portion. The Museum owns another panel, 1981.439.2, from the same building. It is identical to the present panel, save for the addition of small volutes around the outer edges.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art