Something Old
i Fabergé Kovsch
Anders Nevalainen
Founded in Imperial Russia in 1842, the House of Fabergé is best known for the elaborate, hugely valuable jewel-encrusted eggs it designed for the Russian tsars. More affordable, albeit never inexpensive, objects of virtue have included picture frames, card cases and, as here, drinking vessels.
Made for Fabergé from around 1899 to 1908 by Finnish émigré Anders Nevalainen, this exquisite kovsch, or ceremonial cup, is formed from parcel-gilt silver offset with bright blue enamelling. The latter features an abstract pattern of wavy lines hitherto found in Assyrian, Greco-Roman, Renaissance and neoclassical ornament, which is known as guilloché. £20,000.
www.lyonandturnbull.com
ii Urns
English
Made around 1875 in Birmingham by Elkington & Co, this splendid pair of urns is in the Greek-Revival style, which drew for inspiration on ancient Greek architecture and ornament and was recurringly fashionable from the mid-18th century to the late-19th. Cast in silvered bronze, raised on lion paw feet and with scrolled handles, each features four relief panels depicting figures from classical mythology and is embellished with rosettes and anthemions. These floral and foliate motifs, also from classical antiquity, are highlighted with champlevé enamelling in “Wedgwood” blue and iron red. £2,500.
www.dnfa.com
iii Hors d’ouevres dish
German
Rising, seemingly organically, out of a four-leaf clover-shaped base, the figural showpiece of this dish is a femme-fleur. With her sinuous, long-flowing tresses and her sensuous, scantily clad form, she is one of the most distinctive images of the late 19th and early 20th century Jugendstil – the predominantly German and Austrian manifestation of the art nouveau style. Made around 1906 by the German factory Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik, the dish is cast in “continental pewter”, an electroplated metal alloy that polishes to a high sheen and can sometimes be mistaken for silver. €800.
www.kaupp.de
iv Candlestick
Marie Zimmermann
New York metalsmith Zimmermann’s increasingly collectable designs of the 1920s and 1930s range from doors and gates to tableware and jewellery, in diverse metals that include iron, bronze, copper, brass, silver and gold. This candlestick was hand hammered from copper and then plated in gold. Although its component parts, a floral-form base and candleholder linked by a slender twisted stem, are organic in inspiration and have precedents in earlier art nouveau style, they also display a simplicity and clarity of line that appears equally sympathetic to the uncluttered aesthetics of modernism. €1,400.
www.von-zezschwitz.de
v Pitcher
Archibald Knox
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Liberty & Co of London commissioned and retailed furniture, fabrics, jewellery, glass and metalwork that were at the cutting edge of style, whether art nouveau or arts and crafts. Made in the tradition of the latter, this characteristically imaginative water pitcher is stamped and hand-beaten from pewter in the form of an owl. It is from Liberty’s Tudric pewter range, introduced in 1903 by the company’s prolific designer Archibald Knox, and is typically embellished with enamel cabochons – in this case providing the owl’s jade green eyes. $1,500.
www.ragoarts.com
Judith Miller is the author of annual antiques and collectables guides for Millers
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Something New
1 Wallclock
Naoto Fukasawa
Plus Minus Zero’s flagship store in Aoyama, Tokyo, will this week take delivery of a quantity of Wallclocks gilded in silver, gold or copper leaf (shown). The shadow clock, with its minute and hour markers protruding just enough to read, is usually constructed in coloured ABS plastic. For these special versions, only available in Aoyama and from the brand’s website, Fukasawa has chosen to revive the Japanese craft of Kaga leaf from Kanazawa, a city with a rich history of applied arts. A brilliant contemporary use of the ancient art. From Y26,500-Y31,500 (£185-£220).
www.plusminuszero.jp
2 Accento
Konstantin Grcic
Munich-based industrial designer Grcic has been working with table and kitchen utensil specialist Serafino Zani since 2007, when it launched his Passami il Sale (Pass Me the Salt), noted for his laser cut polygonal trays. As with the trays, Grcic now brings his highly refined eye and signature geometry to Accento, a new set of polished stainless steel cutlery and serving tools with flat and broad surfaces that includes a salad set (not shown) serving lifter, cheese knife and risotto spoon. €32, €16 and €27 (left to right).
www.serafinozani.it
3 Brass dish
Shigeo Mashiro
Mashiro is less a designer, more the mastermind behind the Sfera brand, based in Kyoto. The company works with traditional Japanese craftsmen to produce contemporary design items sold in its Kyoto flagship or Tokyo Midtown stores. This dish, one of a new range of items shown in Milan this year during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, is handmade in Kyoto using the traditional Japanese craft of hammering, where heated metal sheet is beaten into a three dimensional shape. Also available in aluminium. Y6,300 (£44).
www.ricordi-sfera.com
4 Complet
Jorgen Moller
Moller trained with Arne Jacobsen before opening his own studio in 1967 and, like his former employer, produced many important designs for Georg Jensen. These salt and pepper grinders are a perfect example from 1993; simple, elegant and highly functional. The polished stainless steel cylinders are fashioned with 45° tops and finished in white or black plastic to differentiate between the contents. Milling is done out of the top (turn them upside down to use) and filling is done from the base, so you never have any spills on the table. €115 for the pair.
www.georgjensen.com
5 Firedogs
Jean-Michel Wilmotte
These laser-cut, solid steel firedogs are by Wilmotte, an architect who in the 1980s had a small store in Paris where he sold editions of his design work usually developed for clients’ projects. They were spotted in the late 1980s by Béatrice de Lafontaine of When Objects Work. The Brussels-based producer-cum-curator of architect-designed objects for the home persuaded Wilmotte to let her re-edition them in 2007, long after he had shuttered the store to concentrate on larger public projects, such as museums. €1,800.
www.whenobjectswork.com
Nick Vinson is special projects director at Wallpaper* magazine
