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SET OF "CONTEMPORA" FLATWARE FOR SIX, CA. 1930

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
SET OF  CONTEMPORA  FLATWARE FOR SIX, CA. 1930
<b>Title: </b>SET OF "CONTEMPORA" FLATWARE FOR SIX, CA. 1930
<b>Designer: </b>ELIEL SAARINEN
<b>Description: </b>designed 1927-1928, manufactured by Dominick and Haff, USA; comprising 6 dinner knives, 6 dinner forks, 6 salad forks, 6 teaspoons, 6 butter spreaders, 6 cocktail forks, 6 demitasse spoons, 6 soup spoons, 1 meat fork, 1 serving spoon, 1 sugar spoon, 1 pickle fork, each marked "sterling" with the Dominick and Haff silvermark, the knives marked "mirrorstele stainless" (52) dinner knife: 8 5/8 in. (21.8 cm) dinner fork: 7 1/4 in. (18.4 cm)
<b>Provenance: </b>
<b>Literature: </b>THE CREATIVE SPIRIT OF CRANBROOK, THE EARLY YEARS, exh. cat., Cranbrook Academy of Art, BLOOMFIELD, October 1972-October 1973, p. 17 for an exhibition listing of the "Contempora" Knife, Fork and Spoon Alber Christ-Janer, ELIEL SAARINEN: FINNISH-AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND EDUCATOR, CHICAGO, 1979, p. 119 Charles L. Venable, SILVER IN AMERICA: 1840-1940: A CENTURY OF SPLENDOR, exh. cat., The Dallas Museum of Art, 1994, pp. 353-354, fig. 9.36 J. Stewart Johnson, AMERICAN MODERN 1925-1940: DESIGN FOR A NEW AGE, NEW YORK, 2000, p. 34 for the dining room in the Metropolitan's 1929 exhibition William P. Hood, Jr., "Modern flatware design: the viande/grille/vogue style," MAGAZINE ANTIQUES, February 1, 2003
<b>Exhibitions: </b>
<b>Notes: </b>This pattern, with its American Modern skyscraper inspired handle, was designed by Eliel Saarinen for The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1929 exhibition "The Architect and the Industrial Arts: An Exhibition of Contemporary American Design." Nine architects were invited by the museum to design 13 rooms for the exhibition. Saarinen created four prototype flatware designs for his model dining room. This pattern was the only one of the four to be produced. It was briefly marketed as "Contempora" by Dominick and Haff, a subsidiary of Reed and Barton, from 1930 to 1936 and was purchased by the present owner's family in the early 1930s.