As the Art Nouveau style was reaching its zenith, Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), was commissioned to design a modern department store for Schlesinger and Mayer (1898-1899), now the Carson, Pirie, Scott, & Co. building in downtown Chicago. From an interior staircase of the building, the decorative balusters exemplified the vegetal ornament that made Sullivan's steel skyscrapers so distinctive. The copper- plated, cast -iron balusters are decorated with interlaced ribbons of stylized seed forms overlaid on a geometric background. In the collection of The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, Winter Park, Florida. Frame Gift boxed.