A cast iron door lock plate, made by Yale and Towne for Louis Sullivan’s masterful early skyscraper, the Guaranty (Prudential) Building, Buffalo, NY. This plate bears the classic Sullivan design theme of the structure (working with Grant Elmslie, his top draftsman). Vegetative forms at the base shoot tendrils upward and outward forming loops, valleys, and bridges of exquisite balletic displays of life forms and engineered structure.

Architectural historians have long called the decorative tracery of the Guaranty Building the most important and beautiful work in American architecture.