THE ART OF LIVING

This wine-cooler designed by Danish silversmith Georg Jensen is perfectly functional but it would also serve as an elegant centrepiece for your dining-table. The wine-cooler is just one piece from a collection of almost 40 lots of silver by Georg Jensen, from a European Private Collector. Together they represent one of the most important single groups of silver by Jensen to appear on the market in London in recent years and includes not only this wine-cooler but other important examples of his work. In pristine condition and measuring 14 inches high and weighing 130 onces, the wine-cooler is among the largest and most spectacular pieces of Jensen in the collection and indeed one of the tour de forces of Jensen’s oeuvre.

The name Georg Jensen is synonymous with ground breaking design and excellence of craftsmanship. Trained as a sculptor and silversmith, Jensen was deeply influenced by the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau traditions, particularly when he worked as a journeyman in the workshops of fellow Danish silversmith Mogens Ballin. Jensen’s first shop was at 36 Bredgade, one of Copenhagen’s most fashionable streets, but his vision was international, with shops opening first in Berlin, then Stockholm and Paris and later around the world.

This wine-cooler is a perfect example of a wrought piece of silver with cast and applied elements and with a hammered finish, a technique which produces a lovely finish that almost seems to shimmer in light.