Urban replicated the elegant design for Elaine’s built-in dressing table in the creation of a desk in the adjacent corner of her bedroom. The desk is absent from this installation but is documented in archival photographs. Like the room’s occasional table, these forms recall the luxe, neoclassically-inspired furniture of the French moderne designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann.
Yet, instead of using exotic woods and ivory, Urban chose lacquered pine and a new plastic, called Pyralin, for the inlays, the fluted elements at the top of the legs, and the drawer pulls. Precursors to the Wormser dressing table and desk form appeared in Urban’s 1928 exhibition boudoir Repose. A comparison shows that Urban refined his earlier design for the form, improving its silhouette and inlays to instill the Wormser pieces with a lighter, more graceful air.
