Shaker Style Rocking Chair

At 1stDibs, there are many versions of the ideal shaker style rocking chair for your home. Each shaker style rocking chair for sale was constructed with extraordinary care, often using metal, steel and wood. If you’re shopping for a shaker style rocking chair, we have 8 options in-stock, while there are 24 modern editions to choose from as well. Whether you’re looking for an older or newer shaker style rocking chair, there are earlier versions available from the 19th Century and newer variations made as recently as the 21st Century. When you’re browsing for the right shaker style rocking chair, those designed in mid-century modern, folk art and Scandinavian Modern styles are of considerable interest. Many designers have produced at least one well-made shaker style rocking chair over the years, but those crafted by Jim Rose, Hans J. Wegner and FDB Møbler are often thought to be among the most beautiful.

Prices for a shaker style rocking chair can differ depending upon size, time period and other attributes — at 1stDibs, they begin at $585 and can go as high as $11,000, while the average can fetch as much as $2,240.

Bringing lively newness to weathered and worn found materials, artist and furniture designer Jim Rose mined scrap heaps and junkyards for the metal he used in his furniture, collages and decorative objects. He kept his eyes open for the ideal scraps of aged steel that could be bent and shaped into a base, frame or surface of his next piece, hand-picking off-colored bits to serve as inlays and accents. 

Rose was long associated with the American Studio Craft movement, and many of his one-of-a-kind works can typically be characterized as a venturesome fusion of folk art and modernist design. Each piece, crafted by hand and with fastidious care in his Wisconsin studio, is representative of his work ethic and boundless imagination.

Born in Indiana, Rose studied briefly at Bard College in New York City and earned his BFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1988. A couple of years earlier, he established his design studio, along with his wife Suzanne — an award-winning photographer — as his partner. During the 1990s, Rose and Suzanne traveled the American Northeast, where he became enamored with Shaker furniture. 

When Rose returned home, he read every piece of literature he could about the history of the Shakers. The name derives from the popular moniker for an all-but-vanished American religious sect, whose members crafted honest, modest household furniture and objects as part of their belief in purposeful living and simplicity in all things. Rose incorporated Shaker methods into the production of his own designs. Rather than utilize the unpretentious hardwoods that the Shakers preferred, however, Rose worked with discarded materials, fashioning tables, case pieces and decorative objects from repurposed steel and other metals.

In the late 1990s, Rose began to include multi-colored metal into his works — adapting methods used by colonial quiltmakers. His furnishings began to take on a mosaic look, bringing a substantial amount of visual appeal and new charm to each of his distinctive creations. Rose also produced a body of work that drew on Ming dynasty designs.

With numerous showings at Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair in New York City and Chicago, Rose made a name for himself throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. He had solo and group exhibitions throughout his career, including in Palm Beach, Florida, and Mesa, Arizona — as well as at many other galleries in New York and Chicago. Rose’s work is held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Mesa Contemporary Arts, Racine Art Museum and other institutions.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Jim Rose storage cabinets, tables, and decorative objects.