- Museum number
- 1982,0510.1-5
- Description
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Five pieces of cutlery; silver, cast, comprising a meat knife, meat fork and spoon, the knife with steel blade and hollow-cast handle, and a fish fork and tea spoon; all decorated with linear ornament representing a stylised peacock feather on the handles. The knife blade is a replacement.
- Production date
- 1901 (circa)
- Dimensions
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Length: 17.30 centimetres (fish fork)
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Length: 21.20 centimetres (fork)
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Length: 24.40 centimetres (knife)
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Length: 21.90 centimetres (spoon)
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Length: 14.60 centimetres (tea spoon)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Text from J. Rudoe, 'Decorative Arts 1850-1950. A catalogue of the British Museum collection', 2nd ed. 1994. no. 37.
Christiansen trained as a painter and graphic artist in Hamburg and then at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich. He studied in Europe and America before spending the years 1899-1902 at the Darmstadt artists' colony.
This service is a variant of the design made for the Darmstadt Exhibition of 1901, which had pistol-shaped handles; see 'Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration', 1901-2, p. 62 and 82, where the cutlery is shown on the dining table in Christiansen's house. It is described as by L.Vietor, Darmstadt (a retailer and silversmith). Both variants, with straight or curved handles, were included in P. Bruckmann & Söhne: Preis-Liste über Silberne-Bestecke, September 1911, 14, no. 3001 1/2 (quoted in Solingen, Deutsches Klingenmuseum, 'Bestecke des Jugendstils', R. Sanger, Cologne 1979, no. 29).
For further examples, see Heller, C.B. 'Kataloge des Hessischen Landmuseums Nr.12. Jugendstil, Kunst um 1900', Darmstadt 1982, no. 37 (meat cutlery with straight handles, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt); Spielmann, H. et al, 'Kataloge des Museums für Kunst uns Gewerbe Hamburg. v. Die Jugendstil-Sammlung. Band 1: Künstler A-F', Hamburg 1979, no. 248 a-f (meat and fish cutlery with straight handles, one knife with curved handle, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg); Museum Flensburg, 'Stilwende um 1900'. 1972, pl. 8b (Flensburg Museum, quoted by Heller and Spielmann); Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts, 'Juendstil' 1977, no. 198 (a pair of salad servers in a private collection); Ulmer, R., 'Museum der Künstlerkolonie , Darmstadt, Katalog', Darmstadt n.d.(1990), cat. no. 77 (Museum der Kunstlerkolonie, Darmstadt).
Information supplementary to Rudoe 1994:
For cutlery from this service with the original knife blades, see 1995,0717.1-4.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1982
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1982,0510.1-5
