Walter Abner Burns Nichols was one of the most colorful of the American adventurer/entrepreneurs in 1920s China. The Nichols name has come to be used almost synonymously with the ‘Chinese deco’ rugs manufactured in Tientsin, China in the 1920s and 1930s. Nichols did not originate the Chinese deco style, but he did a great deal to popularize it and to maintain its high standards of manufacture.
Nichols began in his youth as a first-class wool grader who went to Tientsin around 1920 to work for the Elbrook family of wool merchants. Nichols started his own business a couple of years later. In a brochure he produced in the late ’20s, with the assistance of Pande-Cameron, he announced: “In 1924 W.A.B. Nichols of Tientsin, North China, introduced the Super Chinese Rug which has become world famous. It is known in every market as the most durable and beautiful product of the modern Chinese weavers art and adorns the homes of people all over the earth.”
Scandinavian Modern / Art Deco Finnish Silver Presentation Bowl 1925
SUOMEN KULTASEPPÄ OY Turku, Finland
(FINNISH GOLDSMITH COMPANY, LTD.)
Silver bowl 1925
Hand wrought and repoussé silver with an overall scrolling leaf, blossom and vine motif, applied stylized open work silver handles
Marks: “TILL AIS och NILS WENER 19 [28-30/ IV] 26 ADI och ALLAN RÖNEHOLM,” maker’s mark (hammer with wings), government control mark (crown), 813 H (silver standard) U5 AT (date mark), city mark for Turku
H: 7 1/4″ x W: 13 1/2”
This Art Deco Finnish silver centerpiece was presented as a gift from Adi and Allan Röneholm to Ais and Nils Wener in 1926. By repute this piece was shown the year prior at the Paris 1925 exhibition.
American Art Deco Reed & Barton Sterling candlesticks 1928
REED & BARTON (active 1824 – present) Taunton, MA
Candlesticks 1928
Sterling silver with Hoffmann-like fluted base and bobêches with undulating stem and palm leaf like terminating detail.
Marks: eagle R (in a shield) lion, Sterling, 1000, cement reinforced, eagle (date mark for 1928).
Model illustrated: Vanity Fair (Dec. 1928, Vol. 31), p. 120., Reed & Barton Vintage Catalog, p. 10, plate number 1000.
For more information on Reed & Barton see: Encyclopedia of American Silver Manufacturers, Dorothy T. Rainwater (West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1986), p. 156-160.
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