San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

 

Martelé: the Silver of Le Beau Monde
December 16, 2009 - March 28, 2010

Claret Jug coffee pot sm Ivory n silver
Claret Jug 1900
Coffee Pot 1897
Silver Mounted
Ivory Ewer 1897

Martelé: the Silver of Le Beau Monde

In time for the glitter and sparkle of the holiday season, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts  opened a sumptuous new exhibit on Wednesday evening, December 16th. Martelé: the Silver of Le Beau Monde from the Collection of Suzanne and Joel Sugg is an exhibit culled from an astonishing collection of magnificent silver objects that not only delight the eye but indeed capture a moment of splendor in western society at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth.

Le Beau Monde, the Belle Époque and Martelé – all three terms are French and all three evoke a time of opulence and luxury. Le beau monde refers to fashionable society while the Belle Époque was a period in European and American social history that began in the late19th century and lasted until World War I. It is considered a “Gilded Age” as peace prevailed among the major powers of Europe and a time of prosperity befell the United States.

It is within this world that Martelé, a limited, hand-wrought production line of silver, was created and flourished. It was made from 1896 through the 1930s by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island, the largest manufacturer of silver in the world at that time. The name came from the French verb, marteler, “to hammer,” for that is how the silver objects were made. Each began as a flat piece of silver, which was formed into the desired shape with hammering. The metal used in Martelé was softer and purer than the sterling standard in order to make the silver more malleable and easer to work by hand.

The Gorham Manufacturing Company had made its fortune in mass-produced silver, using large presses that stamped out uniform pieces of flatware and hollowware. However with the collaboration in the late 1880s of Edward Holbrook, president of the company, and William Christmas Codman, chief designer, the idea of an art line of silver took hold. It would be both art and craft, functional and aesthetic. It would be made entirely by hand, each piece original and unique and this new line would take on design characteristics of the Art Nouveau movement that was gaining ground in Europe. Art Nouveau is a style of art, architecture, and applied art – especially the decorative arts – that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century. Based on organic forms found in nature, art nouveau style features dynamic, undulating and flowing lines characterized by organic, especially floral and other plant-inspired motifs.

In Le Beau Monde a significant collection of Martelé silver from the Collection of Suzanne and Joel Sugg of San Angelo will be on exhibit. Beautiful tea and coffee services, platters, loving cups, jewel cases, candlesticks and tureens as well as numerous examples of cups, bowls and silverware will be featured. The official announcement of the new Martelé line was made at the Paris Exposition Universalle of 1900 (a world’s fair held in Paris) and for this event Gorham chose their best pieces. In the exhibit will be some of these objects that were included in the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Suzanne Sugg first took an interest in silver at the age of seventeen on a journey in Europe. She acquired a work by the noted Danish silversmith, Georg Jensen while visiting the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. It wasn’t however until the mid 1990’s that she discovered Gorham’s Martelé and began to avidly build her collection. “It is collectors like Suzanne Sugg that through their passion bring together a meaningful overview of the remarkable achievements of human artistic activity. Martelé is not only the most beautiful silver ever produced in this country but also represents a remarkable time in the history of our nation artistically and culturally. We are deeply grateful to her and Joel for sharing this magnificent collection with the community,” states museum director Howard Taylor.

Within the upstairs galleries the Museum will endeavor to re-create the atmosphere and feeling of the times that Martelé silver represents. A dining room will be installed with hand-painted paneling by artist Laurel Dane as well as other elements that evoke the “Gilded Age.”

For more information on any of the exhibits please call the museum at 653-3333. The museum’s regular operating hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for senior citizens. ASU and SAISD students are admitted free
as well as museum members and military personnel.

The museum is supported by generous contributions from both individuals and businesses. This project is partially supported by funds from the San Angelo Cultural Affairs Council, the City of San Angelo, the Texas Commission on the Arts, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.