REUBEN HALEY (1872–1933)

An anagram of Ruba’i, the Persian poetry genre, and irregular rhombic structures, Haley’s bizarre Ruba-Rombic vessels reveal a fascination for crystallography and for the Cubist paintings to which he was exposed in Paris in 1925. Industrially-produced, the vessels were designed for broad appeal and were distributed through department stores across America. Examples are retained in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York.