Product Description
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.
These candlesticks retailed for $19 in 1928.
H: 10″ x Dia: 4 1/2″
American Art Deco Reed & Barton Sterling candlesticks 1928
WMF (Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik) Geislingen, Germany
Dinanderie vase c. 1930
Silver-plated copper with with red patinated squares and rectangles on a black-patinated textured background
Marks: WMF castle mark, IKORA
Illustrated: WMF Ikora Metall / Metalwork, Carlo Burschel and Heinz Scheiffele (Stuttgart, Germany: ARNOLDSCHE, 2006), p. 142, 90/585.
For more information see: WMF Glas Keramik Metall 1925-1950, Jörg Schwandt, (Berlin: Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museum Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1981). Metallkunst, Band IV (Berlin: Bröhan-Museum, 1981) pp. 546-579.
H: 3″ x Dia: 4″
SOLD
CELLINI-CRAFT Evanston, Ill
Grand “Argental” center piece bowl c. 1934
Hand wrought and hand hammered aluminum in a curvacious ovoid form with applied curlique handles.
Marks: ARGENTAL, XXX, HANDWROUGHT
H: 3 1/4″ x D: 13 3/4″ x L: 21″
CELLINI CRAFT was founded by Walter Gerlach & Hans Gregg in 1914.
The company created jewelry and tableware and was noted for their use of aluminum alloy “Argental.” In 1957 Cellini Craft was purchased by Julius Randahl. In 1965 the patterns and rights to “Argental” were sold to Reed & Barton.
WALTER BOSSE (1904 – 1979) Austria
Bookends c. 1930
Hand-painted and glazed earthenware
For more information see: Walter Bosse: Leben, Kunst, und Handwerk, 1904-1979, Cherica Schreyer-Hartmann, Hans Hagen & Johanna Hottenroth (Vienna: Verlag Christian Brandstätter, 2000), Wiener Keramik: Historismus, Jugendstil, Art Déco, Waltraud Neuwirth, (Braunschweig: Klinkhardt & Bierman, 1974), pp. 114-115.
H: 5″ x D: 4 1/2″ x W: 5 1/4″
Price: $2,250
Walter Bosse (November 13, 1904–December 13, 1979) was a Viennese artist, designer, ceramist, potter, metalworker, and craftsman noted for his modernist bronze animal figurines and grotesques.
Walter Bosse, born November 13, 1904, in Vienna, was the son of artists Luise and Julius Bosse. His father worked as a portrait painter at the imperial court. Walter Bosse attended the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule (Vienna School of Applied Arts) from 1918 to 1921, where he studied ceramics under Michael Powolny, and ornament under Franz Cižek. He then attended the Münchner Kunstgewerbeschule (Munich School of Applied Arts). During his schooling he was given the opportunity to sell his work at the Wiener Werkstätte by Josef Hoffmann, who became a mentor to Bosse. Bosse opened his own shop in Kufstein in 1923.
Bosse’s work grew in popularity and a number of his pieces were shown at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in 1925. He started designing for Augarten Porcelain Works (1924) as well as Goldscheider (1926) and Metzler and Ortloff (1927). In 1931, to meet increasing demand (especially in America), Bosse opened up a bigger shop in Kufstein, but by 1933 he started to feel the effects of the economic depression. By 1937, the Kufstein works were closed.
In 1938, now divorced, Bosse moved back to Vienna where he founded Bosse-Keramik (Bosse Ceramics), which expanded under the new name “Terra” to include glass, toys, textiles. and a variety of craft items for the gift market. In the late 1940s, Bosse began experimenting with brass by giving his ceramic figures a metal coating to protect them from breakage. In the early 1950s, Bosse began his “Black Golden” line of brass figurines. He transitioned all of his efforts to brass. The figures became popular worldwide.
Despite Bosse’s success with his brass figures, it was still a difficult time for him financially. In 1953, partly fleeing from financial troubles, he moved to Iserlohn where he set up a new shop and continued production. Bosse also collaborated with Karlsruhe State Majolika Works on a number of pottery animal figures. In 1958, he designed for Achatit Schirmer in Cologne. Bosse also turned his efforts to small, everyday items such as letter openers, keyrings, corkscrews, and pencil holders, all of which bear his distinctive “black and gold” look. A number of these Bosse designs began to gain widespread popularity internationally.
Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco rug c. 1935
WALTER NICHOLS China
Chinese Art Deco rug c. 1935
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.”