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Prototype tea urn
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Prototype tea urn

Eliel Saarinen  (American (born Finland), Rantasalmi 1873–1950 Bloomfield Hills, Michigan)

Manufacturer:
International Silver Company, Wilcox Silver Plate Company Division (Meriden, Connecticut)
Date:
ca. 1934
Medium:
Electro-plated nickel silver, brass and Bakelite
Dimensions:
14 1/2 x 11 x 11 in. (36.8 x 27.9 x 27.9 cm)
Classification:
Metalwork
Credit Line:
Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Saarinen Swanson and John C. Waddell Gifts, and Gift of Susan Dwight Bliss, by exchange, 1999
Accession Number:
1999.27.1a-c

This artwork is not on display

  • Description

    The Finnish-born architect and designer Eliel Saarinen had an international reputation by the time he immigrated to America in 1923. In 1925 he was hired to develop plans for the Cranbrook Academy of Art at Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Thereafter, though he was responsible for many other important projects, Cranbrook became the focus of his life. Saarinen used this prototype urn and tray in his own house at Cranbrook. The design was put into very limited production by the International Silver Company, and one example was prominently displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the "Room for a Lady" that Saarinen designed for the important 1934 exhibition "Contemporary American Industrial Art." The design concept is remarkably sophisticated: while it relies for its effect on the pure geometries of modernism, any austerity is offset by the fine proportions, the elegance of the exaggerated height of the finial, and the warmth of the brass plating that Saarinen insisted on for his personal pieces (the other versions of the urn and tray were finished in silver plate).

  • Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

    Marking: [stamped on underside of urn] WILCOX S.P.CO./EPNS/INTERNATIONAL S CO/N 5873/15

  • Provenance

    1933-1968: Mr. and Mrs. Eliel Saarinen Collection, Saarinen House, Bloomfield Hills Michigan 1968-1998: Ronald Saarinen Swanson Collection, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

  • Exhibition History

    Newport Beach, California: Orange County Museum of Art, May 25 - August 19, 2001. Flint, Michigan: Flint Institute of Arts, September 14 - December 16, 2001. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, January 11 - April 7, 2002. Charlotte, North Carolina: Mint Museum of Craft and Design, May 3 - July 28, 2002. Tulsa, Oklahoma: The Philbrook Museum of Art, August 23 - November 17, 2002. ¦American Modern¦.

  • See also
    Who
    What
    Where
    When
    In the Museum
    Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
210010487

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