Covered Compote

Arts of the Americas

1926

Designed by Erik Magnussen (American, born Denmark, 1884–1961)
Gorham Manufacturing Company (American, founded 1831, part of Lenox since 2005)
Providence

Danish-born Erik Magnussen’s early pieces for Gorham reflect the stylized vegetal and foliate motifs popularized in the United States by his countryman Georg Jensen. Nonetheless, Magnussen realized that “America demands something plainer, something vitally characteristic.” As a result, by 1926 his designs stressed simplicity, function, and opulent materials. A writer for Good Furniture Magazine acknowledged this trend: “He has developed an American style—a style that is plain, dignified, pure of line, and yet with an indefinable touch of the new, modern feeling.”

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Erik Magnussen
Title: Covered Compote
Place: Providence (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1926
Medium: Silver with ivory
Inscriptions: Marked on base: GORHAM [picture of lion] [picture of anchor] ["G" in calligraphy] STERLING Y F S [picture of sailboat]
Dimensions: 30.5 × 17.8 cm (12 3/8 × 7 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society
Reference Number: 1984.1172a-b

Milo M. Naeve, et al., A Decade of Decorative Arts: The Antiquarian Society of The Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1986), 100–1, cat. 80 (ill.).
Jennifer M. Downs, “‘The New Modern Feeling’: A Catalogue of the Collection,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 26–27, cat. 3 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), cat. 53 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, Elizabeth McGoey, et al., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (Yale University Press, 2016), cat. 85 (ill.).
Elizabeth McGoey, ed., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2018), https://publications.artic.edu/americansilver/reader/collection/section/6, cat. 85 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, A Decade of Decorative Arts: The Antiquarian Society of The Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 12, 1986–Jan. 4, 1987, cat. 80.

With Catherine Kurland, New York, by 1984; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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