In the 1920s, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann was one of the most successful and most highly paid designers of furniture and interiors. Ruhlmann's luxury designs represent French Art déco at its best and Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann was the leading light of Art déco furniture-making in Paris. Born in Paris in 1879, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann took over the family decorating business in 1907. From 1911 Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann showed his exquisitely elegant furniture and decorative objects at the Paris Salons d'Automne. Ruhlmann always used precious hardwoods such as rosewood, Macassar ebony, and amboina, often inlaid with tortoiseshell and ivory intarsia, for his exclusively one-off pieces. With Pierre Laurent, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann Établissement Ruhlmann et Laurent in Paris in 1919. For the 1925 Paris "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes", Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann created a sensation with the decoration and furniture he had designed for his "Hôtel du Collectionneur" (A Collector's House). In 1929 Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann showed the elegant study and living room he had designed for a crown prince at the "Salon des Artistes Décorateurs". The famous actress Jeanne Renouard bought the storage furniture Ruhlmann designed for the library and the Maharajah of Indore even had it copied in Macassar ebony for his new Palace at Manik Bagh. This modular storage furniture prefigures modern system furniture. For that same interior, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann also designed a swiveling desk chair with a leather-covered seat. For the round foot he combine metal with mahogany veneer. Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann's later furniture designs became increasingly modern and functional. Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann designed the furniture for several rooms in the Élysée Palace in Paris.