Grille

Samuel Yellin was one of the most important American metalworkers of the early twentieth century. He executed metalwork for the National Cathedral in Washington, D. C., and the New York Athletic Club and Temple Emanuel in New York. Unlike the other metal pieces exhibited here, this one was never installed in a building. Rather, it was a maquette (or study) and may have been the presentation piece shown to the architects of the Federal Reserve Bank in lower Manhattan (see illustration below) to help Yellin secure the commission. The final designs of the actual metalwork in the bank, which Yellin, in the Arts and Crafts tradition, executed by hand, are closely related. Yellin was not an architect as were the designers of the other metal pieces here; rather, the Renaissance Revival style of this grille was dictated by the bold Italian Renaissance style of the bank.