Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco rug with circle motif c. 1935
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Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco rug with circle motif c. 1935
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.”
Mellerio Paris Rare French Art Deco “Gyroscope” sterling cigarette box c.1930
MELLERIO PARIS Italy/ France
Gyroscope cigarette box c.1930
French silver (950 silver standard) in a structural form of a gyroscope with a lever for an interior lifting mechanism, gilding
Marks: Mellerio Paris, 3776 D, head of Minerva French guarantee mark for 950/1000
H: 5 1/4″ x Dia: 4 1/4″
The renowned Mellerio family and their jewelry can be traced back to Lombardy, Italy as early as the 16th century. Some family members moved to Paris and became royal jewelers for Louis XIII. The revolutions of 1789 and 1848 interrupted their business and they moved to Madrid where they became the jewelers favored by Queen Isabel II. Later in the 19th century they returned to Paris where once again they prospered and participated in several international expositions including London (1862), Paris (1867, 1878 and 1900), and Vienna (1873). In the 20th century they exhibited at the renowned Paris 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and then in New York at the 1939 World’s Fair.
Münchner Werkstätten / Art Deco Large Glazed Pottery Vase c. 1928
MÜNCHNER WERKSTÄTTEN Germany
Vase c. 1928
Blue and white modeled glazed earthenware with orange red outlines
Marks: “M” over “W” mark, Germany
Provenance: Mr. Ernest L. King (Watkins) “Rockledge” Commission, Winona, MN c.1930’s Phillip Brooks Maher (interior architect), descended in the King Family to Bud (E. L. King Jr.) and Betty King, Winona, MN, Hollander Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, Private Collection, New York, NY
H: 9 ¾” x W: 8 ¼” x D: 8 ¼”
Price: $5,450
ROCKLEDGE, the summer home of Ernest and Grace King (the Watkins Family Company fortune was made from door-to-door sales of health potions and hygiene related products) was built and designed in its entirety from the expansive main home building with all of the furnishings to the custom silver service all the way down to the hand woven carpets and lace curtain designs, is arguably the most famous American Arts and Crafts commissioned home in America and was built and meticulously designed by George Washington Maher. It was finished in 1912, and was used by the Kings for the month of August only for a couple of decades before the interior was completely redone in the fashionable Art Deco design of the 1930’s. George Washington Maher’s son Phillip Brooks Maher, was hired for the project and went shopping for the best of the design of the period in both New York and Paris. He assembled a legendary collection of Art Deco design that comprised many important examples of both American and European Art Deco including the famous Donald Deskey square form telescope table, a Gilbert Rohde “Z” clock, a pair of Mies van der Rohe red lacquer and wicker armchairs, DIM furniture and rugs from Paris and rare Paolo Venini floor lamps and sculptural glass pieces among many other major 20th Century design works. This rare vase was indicative of the avant-garde furnishings throughout the King Home as well as the exquisite quality and attention to the detail of every single object that the Kings surrounded themselves with and became accustomed to enjoying and living with whether they were at their Daytona Beach resort, their lakeside property at Lake Tahoe or their plantation in Hawaii!
Walter Bosse / Austrian Keramik Art Deco Glazed Pottery Bookends c.1930
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.
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