Hammered sterling silver, Aventurine stone, wood.
Coffee pot: Height: 10.5" - Width: 8.5" - Depth: 4.75"
Tea pot: Height: 7" - Width: 8.5" - Depth: 5.5"
Milk Pitcher: Height: 4.75" - Width: 6.25" - Depth: 4"
Sugar Bowl: Height: 6" - Width: 7" - Depth: 4.5"
Bloch-Eschwège was founded in 1920 by two brothers-in-law—Jacques-Prosper Bloch (1882-1944) and Albert Eschwège (1872-1938), who came from a family of gemstone dealers in Germany. Their storefront was located 49 rue Meslay, and their offices in the Marais in Paris.
Inspired by the success of the Paris Exposition of 1925, the pair, who were primarily silversmiths in the classical style (as well as diamond dealers), decided to make a production line of tableware with modernist shapes. For this purpose they recruited Maurice Adrien Muller (1907-2003), a student of the metal sculptor Gabriel Lacroix (1894-1963). Muller had recently graduated when he became the foreman and head designer of this brand new modernist branch of Bloch-Eschwège.
According to the archives of Jean-Loup Eschwège (the grandson of Albert), classical designs accounted for nine-tenths of the firm’s tableware production, and so the firm created only few hundred modernist sets—possibly as few as 200 were completed in total, and in very limited editions, often as unique items.
It is, moreover, likely that Muller himself not only designed, but single-handedly executed, each piece of our unique and exquisite tea & coffee set, which is stamped with the monogram “BE” for Bloch & Eschwege, 42 Rue Meslay, Paris III, as well as the French title stamp for silver (the head of Minerva).
Another similar modernist tea set by Bloch-Eschwege & Muller was held in the collection of Karl Lagerfeld.
