Material On the left: A black lacquered wooden top with a white lacquered wooden drawer unit on a silver-painted metal frame with nickel-plated tubular steel legs. On the right: A black-stained wooden cabinet with white edges and a glass top.
Dimensions 70 × 150 × 90 cm
Place of Creation Amsterdam
Price Available upon inquiry
Status Vetted

About the Work

A clear, graphic and spatial design, based entirely on a 30 x 30 cm grid, enhanced by a black and white color-scheme.


Desk r6 demonstrates how, after his huge contribution to the aesthetic movement ‘De Stijl’, Rietveld continued to renew himself. In this desk, he designed for the avant-garde warehouse Metz & Co., he incorporates features of his asymmetrical furniture from the early 1920s, such as the 'Berlin Chair', while simultaneously he is conforming to the principles of functionalism. It is an important transitional piece that marks a turn in Rietveld’s career as an architect and furniture designer in the early 1930s, towards functionalism.


It also marks the start of a long and fruitful cooperation with Metz & Co in Amsterdam and The Hague, who played a key role as a manufacturer, reseller and promoter of modernist design. During the process of moving away from artisanal furniture making in his own workshop towards designing serial products mend to be executed by a third party, Metz & Co. gave Rietveld ample space for his experiments.


They also organized high-profile presentations and exhibitions in house and abroad to show Rietveld’s, many times groundbreaking, furniture designs to their network of sophisticated clients. Historic photos, published in architectural magazines, newspapers and folders are showing Desk r6 at a prominent position at several important presentations of Rietveld’s new furniture designs in the early 1930s.

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Provenance

Gilles Pieter de Neve, Dutch publisher of art calendars, Amsterdam, 1931/35–1978; His daughter Joanne de Neve, 1978–2015.

Mr. G.P. de Neve came into contact with Gerrit Rietveld in the early 1930s through his work as the publisher of the art calendar ‘De Baanbreker’ (The Pioneer). In 1931, an article by Gerrit Rietveld was published in ‘De Baanbreker’, alongside with a photo of the famous ‘Harrenstein interior’.

1931 was also the year Metz & Co first presented Desk r6 to the public, in a model-home in a new modernist apartment building Rietveld designed in commission of Truus Schröder, located opposite to the ‘Rietveld-Schröder House’ in Utrecht. Being a great admirer of Rietveld’s work, Publisher de Neve purchased the desk for his wife, who left it to her daughter in 1978.

Literature

Marijke Küper, Ida van Zijl, Gerrit Th. Rietveld, The Complete Works, Centraal Museum Utrecht 1992, p. 134–135;
Petra Timmer, Metz & Co de creatieve jaren, 010 Publishers Rotterdam 1995, p. 77–94.

View artwork at TEFAF Maastricht 2026

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