Bowl

Peer Smed trained with the royal silversmiths in Copenhagen alongside Georg Jensen and developed an elite clientele that included Danish and Swedish royalty. In 1903 he immigrated to the United States and opened a gold chasing business on Maiden Lane. After returning to Denmark in 1907 for a year or two, he established a shop that produced ornamental iron work in Long Island City. Ultimately he set up a workshop in Brooklyn, where he produced handcrafted silver and metalwork until the last years of his life when he moved to New York City. His work, which inflects contemporary Scandinavian design sensibilities with his own distinctive style, attracted much public and critical acclaim and established him as a leading figure in the American Arts and Crafts movement. In addition to handcrafting silver and metalwork, Smed collaborated with manufacturers such as Tiffany & Co. and International Silver Company to produce designs for industrially produced wares. Smed’s work is both traditional and modern, and his career successfully straddled the realms of industrial design and traditional craftsmanship. Created in the final years of his life as a Christmas gift for an as-yet unidentified woman named Elisabeth Pagel, this bowl is chased in a far rougher and bolder style than the work for which Smed is best known. (See 2013.959.8.1, .2) It eloquently illustrates Smed’s skills as a designer and craftsmen and showcases his idiosyncratic and inventive vision.