Tea or Coffee Service Designer: Paul A. Lobel (American, born Romania, 1899–1983)
Manufacturer: Wilcox Silver Plate Company (American, 1867–1898)

1934

American Decorative Arts

On view, 3rd floor, Modern and Contemporary Art and Design

With its spare, rectangular tray and spherical vessels devoid of extraneous decoration, this tea or coffee set embodies the daring, forward-looking spirit that defines many products of the 1930s. The designer, Paul Lobel, was inspired by the geometric rigor of avant-garde painting, the austere metalwork produced by the Bauhaus in Germany, and the luxurious wares made by the French silversmith Jean Puiforcat. The prototype for Lobel’s set was included in the 1934 exhibition Contemporary American Industrial Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Wilcox Silver Plate Company put the set into limited production, but the design may have proven too adventurous for American tastes or too expensive for Depression-era pocketbooks, as only a handful are known to survive.

Medium

Silver plate, alpaca, Britannia, pewter, and wood

Dimensions

coffee pot: 6 × 6 × 8 1/8 in. (15.2 × 15.2 × 20.6 cm)
creamer: 4 1/4 × 4 × 5 1/2 in. (10.8 × 10.2 × 14 cm)
sugar bowl: 4 1/8 × 4 × 5 1/2 in. (10.5 × 10.2 × 14 cm)
tray: 1 1/8 × 18 1/8 × 8 in. (2.9 × 46 × 20.3 cm)

Credit Line

John C. Waddell Collection, Gift of John C. Waddell, B.A. 1959

Accession Number

2012.124.3.1-.4

Geography

Manufactured in Meriden, Connecticut, Designed in New York, New York

Culture

American

Period

20th century

Classification

Containers

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Purchased by John C. Waddell, New York, 1997
Bibliography
  • American Art: Selections from the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2023), 206–7, no. 96, ill
  • John Stuart Gordon et al., A Modern World: American Design from the Yale University Art Gallery, 1920–1950 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2011), 266–67, no. 181
  • Wendy Moonan, "Exhibition Examines the Silver Lining of an American Industry," New York Times (December 15, 2006),
  • Jewel Stern, Modernism in American Silver: 20th-Century Design, exh. cat. (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 2005), 111, 115–17, 359
Object copyright
Copyright Artist/Estate/Foundation
In Copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

coffee services, tea services

Marks

“WILCOX S.P. CO. / INTERNATIONAL S. CO. [sans serif, in D-shape, crossed hammers in center reserve] EP WM [flanking hammers] / N5873 / I S [each letter in square] / N2313 [scratched] / 5,” incuse on underside of pot; “23,” incuse on inside of lid of pot; “WILCOX S.P. CO. / INTERNATIONAL S. CO. [sans serif, in D-shape, crossed hammers in center reserve] / EPWM [each letter in square] / N5873 / I S [each letter in square],” incuse on underside of creamer; “A4,” incuse on underside of foot ring of creamer; “A4,” incuse on inside of lid of creamer; “WILCOX S.P. CO. / INTERNATIONAL S. CO. [sans serif, in D-shape, crossed hammers in center reserve] EP WM [flanking hammers] / N5873 / I S [each letter in square] / 45,” incuse on underside of sugar bowl; “45,” incuse on inside of lid of sugar bowl

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