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Gorham Manufacturing Company

Mythologique Flatware Design Samples, 1894

Description

Maker

  • Florentin Antoine Heller, 1839-1904, French, designer
  • Gorham Manufacturing Company, 1831-present, American

Title

Mythologique Flatware Design Samples

Year

1894

Medium

Silver

Type

  • Metalwork

Credit

Gift of Lenox, Incorporated

Object Number

2005.118.42

Projects & Publications

Publications

Gorham Silver Designing Brilliance 1850-1970

(Re)tracing the Silver Seaweed

A Maker's Process

Manual / Issue 5

Unfinished
Read Online

Surprise Endings

Gorham Silver's Mythologique

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Making It In America

October 11, 2013 - February 9, 2014

These flatware design samples combine intricate detailing wrought from hours of modeling by hand with the evidence of a drop press’s mechanized brute force. They also testify to the desire 19th-century Americans felt for designs derived from the past as they simultaneously embraced the industrial processes that would guarantee the country’s future. The polished refinement of Antoine Heller’s 24 handle designs, each depicting different mythological figures and scenes, contrasts with the utensils’ unfinished lower sections—note the untrimmed excess metal left between the fork tines (lower left and right).

In the Victorian dining room, the ability to manage dozens of implements, from a pickle fork to an oyster ladle, attested to a diner’s command of complicated social rules and expectations, and therefore his or her status.

Related

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for salad fork and spoon, Diomedes Devoured by His Horses, 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for pickle fork and sardine fork, "Childhood of Marsyas", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for tea fork, "Vulcan Presenting the Shield to Minerva", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for soup ladle, "Saturn and Phoebus Apollo", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for butter spreader and tea knife, "Arion Saved by a Dolphin", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for punch ladle, oyster ladle, and gravy spoon, "Amphitrite and Neptune", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for butter knife, cheese knife, individual large salad fork, beef fork, large pastry fork, and individual large fish fork, "Oedipus and the Sphynx", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern backside for soup ladle, "Saturn and Phoebus Apollo", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for olive spoon, butter pick, olive fork, mustard spoon, and oyster fork, "Childhood of Bacchus", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for dessert fork, "Chiron and Achilles", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for sugar tongs, "Minerva (Pallas), (Athene)", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern backside for gravy ladle, large sugar sifter, cold meat fork, preserve spoon, tablespoon, large cheese spoon, and pea spoon, "Vulcan Presenting Thunderbolts to Jupiter", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for crumb knife, asparagus fork, berry spoon, vegetable spoon and fork, and fish knife and fork, "Apollo Crowned by the Muses", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for for bonbon spoon, coffee spoon, berry fork, and salt spoon, "Aeneas and Anchises", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for dessert knife, "Ceres (Summer)", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for gravy ladle, large sugar sifter, cold meat fork, preserve spoon, tablespoon, large cheese scoop, and pea spoon, "Vulcan Presenting Thunderbolts to Jupiter", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for ice cream fork, lettuce fork, and small teaspoon, "Death of the Centaur Nessus", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern backside for cream ladle, jelly spoon, waffle knife, pie knife, and dessert spoon, "Nessus Carrying Off Dejanira", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for cake knife, individual fish knife, dessert knife, and ice cream slicer, "Perseus with the Head of Medusa", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for asparagus server and game carving knife and fork, "Pomona (Autumn)", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for meat carving knife, fork, and sharpening steel, "Cybele (Winter)", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for cream ladle, jelly spoon, waffle knife, pie knife, and dessert spoon, "Nessus Carrying Off Dejanira", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for small berry spoon and small teaspoon, "Minerva Springing from the Brain of Jupiter", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern backside for table fork, "Charon Ferrying Souls to Hades", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern backside for pickle knife, teaspoon, orange spoon, pap spoon, ice cream spoon and sugar spoon, "Penelope Recognizing Ulysses", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for bonbon tongs, "Jove's Eagle", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for medium knife, "Vertumnus (Spring)", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for table fork, "Charon Ferrying Souls to Hades", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Pattern for pickle knife, teaspoon, orange spoon, pap spoon, ice cream spoon, and sugar spoon, "Penelope Recognizing Ulysses", 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Gorham "Mythologique" flatware pattern display box, 1894

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Mythologique Flatware Pattern Booklet, 1894

More objects +

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is Mythologique Flatware Design Samples with the accession number of 2005.118.42. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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