Art
“Magnificent, Marvelous Martelé”
Through June 11 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Silver is the new gold, at least when it comes to decorative arts exhibitions. Last fall, a major retrospective of modernist silver—by such high-caliber designers as Richard Meier, Eliel Saarinen, Michael Graves and Robert Venturi—began a national tour at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. The names Robert Bain and William Codman may not be as familiar, though, unless you’re a fan of the exquisite silver handcrafted by the Gorham Manufacturing Company during the Gilded Age. Work by these two men and others is currently on display at the Frist Center in “Magnificent, Marvelous Martelé: American Art Nouveau Silver From the Robert and Jolie Shelton Collection.”
It’s somewhat ironic that the Rhode Island-based Gorham came to be associated with one-of-a-kind pieces tailored to an exclusive clientele, given that the company’s fortunes had been made with affordable mass-produced products such as Codman’s still popular “Chantilly” flatware pattern, introduced in 1895. Nothing as ubiquitous as that is included in this show; instead, the Tiffany-blue gallery is filled with the kinds of items made for Gilded Age industrial tycoons who ran the country to unprecedented prominence, while their wives created a new social registry.
Serving in Style Gorham’s Martelé line was characterized, in part, by curvilinear shapes.
Take, for example, the twin vases created for a Boston society matron in 1900. The tops seem to have been folded or peeled over sides embellished with representations of flowers and vines. These vases look, as do all of the Martelé pieces here, at once delicate and substantial, as if they’d been made of molded clay. In fact, Martelé silver—the name is derived from the French verb meaning “to hammer”—was generally made from a continuous sheet of silver, hammered into shape and the decorative elements then “chased,” or raised, from the piece. For this, Gorham trusted only the best silver-makers, so highly regarded that they were collectively referred to as the “House of Lords,” explains collector Jolie Shelton.
Shelton began collecting Martelé a decade ago after an impulse purchase at a New Orleans auction. She and her husband were there to add to their collection of Barbizon School and Impressionist paintings—similar works can be seen in the Frist’s “Paths to Impressionism” exhibit in the adjoining gallery—but a silver water pitcher (1898) caught her fancy. That pitcher, which is on display at the Frist, led not only to the establishment of what is now the largest collection of Martelé, but also to a quest for information about the silver. The Lafayette, La.-based Sheltons have since co-written a book on the subject with John W. Keefe, director of New Orleans Museum of Art, and are working on a second that will include subsequent additions to their collection, as well as information about previous owners of the pieces.
Gorham’s Martelé line was created at the height of the art nouveau movement. Characterized by curvilinear shapes and motifs borrowed from nature, art nouveau was overwhelmingly popular in Europe, where subway stations and apartment buildings in cities like Vienna, Brussels and Paris still reflect its essence. In “Magnificent, Marvelous Martelé,” the curvy “arabesque” silhouette of a pitcher from an 1897 coffee set is a stylistic nod to the Arabic cultures from which European artists drew inspiration. Whimsically decorated with the likeness of a peacock and graced with an almost impossibly thin and sinuous handle, the “peacock” ewer (1899) perfectly captures the spirit of art nouveau and won a gold medal at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900.
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Hammered Out Love Cup, 1900
A number of Gorham’s pieces debuted at World’s Fairs, which, after the success of London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, were seen as opportunities to introduce new technologies and products. Among the medal winners in “Magnificent, Marvelous Martelé” is a large punch bowl (1901) created by Gorham’s premier chaser, Robert Bain. The bowl features personifications of the North and South Winds on either side and dolphins swimming at the base. The handles at either end—a mermaid and her male counterpart—were attached with such skill that they appear to be emerging from the bowl’s surface as though from water.
Given their roots in Gilded Age society, these pieces have a long history of parties and celebrations, perhaps none more so than the complete table setting at one end of the gallery. Commissioned in 1917 by drugstore heir and oil and gas magnate Harry Sinclair, the setting includes all the required elements of a well-appointed table of the era: candlesticks, bouillon cups and ramekins, sauce boats, and dishes for everything from almonds to bread to sherbet. What table would be complete without a centerpiece? This one has two: the original gilded silver and brass piece weighs more than 400 ounces. Keeping it stocked with fresh orchids was costing $1,000 per week, so in 1924, Mrs. Sinclair switched to a smaller one requiring only $100 worth of orchids per week. According to Robert Shelton, she sent the larger one to an aunt. “Goodness knows what she did with it,” he jokes. “She could have had baptisms in it.”
By the mid-1920s, the world for which Martelé was created was disappearing. New income-tax and business laws, coupled with a sagging economy and social changes resulting from the war—including a shrinking pool of people to staff large estates—all brought about the end of the Gilded Age, and with it the popularity of art nouveau and the demand for the glorious silver that had come to define Gorham’s products. Still, a century later, people clearly remain enchanted by Martelé.