Five-Piece Tea Service

This hand-wrought silver service was manufactured around 1902–04 by the German company of Gerhardi & Co. It exemplifies the attention to design expressed in the handcrafted aesthetic of German Jugendstil, the German variation of French and Belgian Art Nouveau that developed as a major creative force in Vienna and emphasized the authenticity of craftsmanship. Jugendstil artists, architects, and designers cultivated the fine and applied arts, also known as the functional or decorative arts, as a way to project creative expression into everyday living and working spaces and advance their larger purpose—to unify art and life.

 
Rejecting the practice of faithfully copying past European and Asian styles, many Jugendstil artists and designers proposed a direct and immediate relationship with nature. In keeping with this ideal, organic, curvilinear shapes and stylized plant forms decorate the smooth surfaces of this silver tea service.

While this tea and coffee set has not been firmly attributed to the leading German Jugendstil designer Peter Behrens (1868–1940), who worked for Gerhardi & Co., the quality of the design makes it a notable example of German Jugendstil stylized plant forms and linear aesthetics.