Designer: Richard Rohac (1906 – 1956)

Item: Wave Shaped Bookends

Manufactured by: Richard Rohac

Country of origin: Austria

Year made: Late 1940s

Materials: Patinated and unpolished brass

Dimensions: Each is 3 ½” x 4” x 1 ¼” 

Condition: Excellent

Description: Another fine, well executed, elegant, heavy and very rare pair of patinated brass bookends by Richard Rohac.  Some of Rohac’s bookends rival the overall quality, craftsmanship and design of the work by Carl Auböck, but at a much more reasonable price point.  This pair is perhaps the strongest competition with Auböck bookends by Rohac we have seen. These were easy to date because the unpatinated edges show unevenness and blotchy brass indicative of brass works from Austria immediately after World War II when brass artillery shell casings from munitions were melted for use.  The brass was filled with imperfections creating this quilted look to the finish. 

Each are marked with the reverse Rs and “Made in Austria” as shown in the photographs. This is the first pair of this model we have seen.  These bookends look like miniature Richard Serra sculptures, but were done when Serra was just a young child.

Rohac was a master metal craftsman who began and completed his apprenticeship with the Werkstatte Hagenauer in Vienna, Austria as a teenager and stayed with the workshop another nine years before opening his own metalwork business in 1932.