Set of 6 Rare Gold Gilt Solid Silver French Emile Puiforcat A La Russe Teaspoons

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Seller: santoor-uk ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Manchester , GB, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 283698976968 Set of 6 Rare Gold Gilt Solid Silver French Emile Puiforcat A La Russe Teaspoons.

Rare Set of Six Antique 24ct Gold Gilt Fully Hallmarked Solid Silver French Emile Puiforcat A La Russe Teaspoons In A superb Quality Velvet Lined Presentation Box With Ornate Brass Hinges.

Absolutely fantastic set of six o rnate silver (950 silver) teaspoons made by master French silversmiths of the highest order. They need to be seen and handled to be fully appreciated as the photographs attached really do not do them justice. Please browse all 12 sets of photographs attached for size, weight and condition as they are self explanatory.

Kindly note: Puriforcat used 950 silver which is better quality than the UK 925 sterling silver.

The Puriforcat House's legacy was forged under the auspices of two singular dynasties. In 1820, the first of these lines, the Puiforcat family, founded a small cutlery shop in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. Brothers Emile and Joseph-Marie Puiforcat partnered with a distant cousin, Jean-Baptiste Fuchs.

The family atelier soon flourished. As of 1915, Louis-Victor Tabouret, the husband of Laure Puiforcat, herself a descendant of the founders, transformed the company into a luxury silversmith brand renowned throughout Parisian high society for its perfectionism. In his spare time, the beauty-loving director collected classic works of Haute Orfèvrerie: with his expert eye, he would find unique pieces in auction houses, later reproducing the finest works in his workshop. Elegant Parisians thus rediscovered a full array of craftsmanship savoir-faire that was slowly succumbing to the threat of industrialization. Enthralled by his work and viscerally connected to the House under his control, Louis-Victor took the rare step of adopting his wife's maiden name to perpetuate the Puiforcat tradition.

In the 1920s, his son Jean (August 5, 1897 – October 20, 1945) honorably maintained the legend by leading the Maison towards avant-garde Art Deco stylings: a visionary artist, he provided the inspiration behind the pure-lined cutlery, the tea services with their austere silhouettes and the simple and distinguished pitchers that engendered the Puiforcat legend and the brand's modernity.

Jean Elysée Puiforcat was a French silversmith, sculptor and designer. Miller's Antiques Encyclopedia calls Puiforcat the "most important French Art Deco silversmith."

Jean Puiforcat served in World War I. After the war, he apprenticed as a silversmith and a designer. He lived in Paris. He designed in the art deco style. His silver work had smooth surfaces and was based on the geometric series. Ivory, onyx, lapis lazuli, and rosewood were used to decorate pieces. He also used gilding. Puiforcat left Paris and moved to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, around 1927. In 1928, he co-founded the Union des Artistes Modernes. He started designing tableware and by 1934 he also had designed liturgical silver. In 1941, he moved to Mexico. After his move, he started exhibiting in the United States.

Boasting exceptional savoir-faire, the House of Puiforcat offers pieces of its heritage while imagining the classics of tomorrow. Going beyond tableware, the House of Puiforcat dedicates its expertise to cultivating a complete silversmith’s Art de vivre around the art of fine taste and decoration.

Andy Warhol collected Puiforcat silverware, which he acquired while visiting Paris in the 1970s. In 1988, Warhol memorabilia was sold at Sotheby's. The collection sold for $451,000 and a tureen with an aventurine decoration sold for $55,000. Work by Puiforcat is held in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. A chain of boutiques is named after him, which sell his designs and sculptures.

The historical form of service À La Russe "service in the Russian style" is a manner of dining that involves courses being brought to the table sequentially, and the food being portioned on the plate by servants (usually at a sideboard in the dining room) before being given to the diner. It became the norm in very formal dining in the Western world over the 19th century. It contrasts with the older service à la française “service in the French style" in which all the food (or at least several courses) is brought out simultaneously, in an impressive display of tureens and serving dishes, and the diners put it on their plates themselves.

It had the advantage of the food being much hotter when reaching the diner, and reducing the number of dishes and condiments on the table at a given time. It ensured that everybody could taste everything they wanted, which in practice the old system often did not allow. On the other hand, the effect of magnificent profusion was reduced, and many more footmen and more tableware were required, making it an option only the wealthy could afford. It also reduced the time spent at the table.

The Russian Ambassador Alexander Kurakin is credited with bringing service à la russe to France in 1810, at a meal in Clichy on the outskirts of Paris. It eventually caught on in England, becoming the norm by the 1870s and 1880s, though in France there was considerable resistance and service à la française lingered on until the 1890s, and even beyond for the most formal state banquets. Service à la russe is now the style in which most modern Western restaurants serve food.

There was a less formal style known as service à l'anglaise “English service" in France, with the hostess serving the soup at one end of the table, and later the host carving a joint of meat at the other end, servants taking these to the diners, and the diners serving themselves with other dishes.

While Tolstoy detailed the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, en France the impacts of the Patriotic War of 1812 reached well beyond the borders of la Russie. Today the French dine daily à la russe—perhaps the greatest impact Napoleon made on modern French culture. While French courtly cultures historically dined à la française, Napoleon and his armies adopted the idea of course-by-course dining while en campagne, bringing back to la République a Russian tradition that changed the way the French—and therefore the world—eat. Until then, dining in the French courts was a royal buffet piled high, à la an upscale Western Sizzlin’, with mountainous heaps of edible processional showpieces. A small intimate dinner for 40 close friends and family of the French aristocracy would have required nearly 100 dishes spread along the table like a still life while an artist hovered on the horizon, capturing their feasts in la nature morte.

The royal tradition of dining à la française was typical of the Louis’ love for indulgence. Such was the extravagance of dining during the Ancien Regime that guests were actually invited to watch the show. Similar to how the queen would birth her husband’s heirs with an audience, crowds elbowed their way to the front of the gallery to watch as whole fish, birds, and haunches of meat surrounded by moats of gravy were paraded to the royal table and consumed. The dining implements were legendary—gorgeous silver platters, porcelain tureens, shellfish étagères and decanters for vinegar, wine, moutarde and more littered the table. Guests, according to their rank, would either help themselves to the bounty or be served by waiters. And while this was all fine and dandy, the best eaters were the ones who kept a wary eye on the royal host—for when he was finished eating, the food would be briskly whisked away from the table regardless of who still had their spoon in their mouth.

And while the pomp and circumstance of dining à la française was a visual feast, as anyone who frequents the Golden Corral knows, buffet dining isn’t the best way to enjoy a meal. Hot dishes cool to lukewarm, while sauces congeal and cool dishes rise to room temperature. Meat dries out and a film forms over the soups in a globby mess reminiscent of Thanksgivings gone awry. Buffet food, however extravagant in presentation, loses its potential for flavor. Napoleon wanted nothing of the courtly culture loved by the Louis. The little general fell head over heels for the dining concept he experienced in Russia— today what we know as the French style of dining course-by-course traditionally was adopted from Napoleon’s conquerers.Versailles

In the traditional French dining style the emphasis was on the feast itself, not necessarily upon the food which was being consumed. Napoleon and his army’s new style of eating à la russe shifted thinking away from the procession and onto the food, forming the modern day French gourmet sentimentality. As diners began to taste the food they were eating—giving one item their sole attention—the focus shifted to how the food was prepared and then served. Great discussion was given on how to best move cooked food from the kitchen to the plate. Instead of entire pigs displayed on the table, they were now carved at the sideboard and served to guests in an orderly fashion. Dishes and cutlery were cleared between courses and replaced with clean ones filled with food from the next course.

The place setting became an art form with each guest given identical plates—a concept born to be beloved by the children of the French Revolution. Guests were seated by place card and some of former French court foundations remained. Guests didn’t take a bite until the host or hostess first began to eat, but courses were small and finished as a group before the next course was brought to the table. Meals began with a calligraphied menu and courses were anticipated as diners waited for the feast that would follow. The table was set with flowers and candles and beside each plate a host of necessary cutlery alongside stemmed glasses for waters, wines and champagnes. Napkins were rolled and laid atop the plate and each guest was given their own salt cellar for seasoning their meal to their taste. The essential change in dining in the Russian style was that hot food was eaten hot and cold food was eaten cold. Less food was prepared overall, but more food was appreciated.

As food began to be truly tasted and appreciated almost as art form, those preparing the food, formerly merely considered staff, were elevated in position. In fact, the Belle Epoque birthed the first “Top Chef”. A product of the Revolution, Antoine Carême, a man born into a poor family with 25 children, worked his way up from restaurant kitchens, achieving a Guy Savoy-sort of French fame previously thought impossible amongst the servant class. Chefs became known and discussed, lending their name to their best creations. Adolphe Dugléré, the chef of Café Anglais in Paris in the 1850s, became the namesake for Sole Dugléré while restaurateurs such as César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier changed the way the world dined forevermore. And by the end of WWI the traditional service à la française was a thing of the past. The new French style of dining was service à la russe and with it came new gentry in the kitchen and at Napoleon’s table

  • Brand: Emile Puirforcat
  • Pattern: A La Russe
  • Antique: Yes
  • Composition: Solid Silver
  • Product: Teaspoons
  • Style: Louis XVI
  • Featured Refinements: 24ct Gold Gilt
  • Material: Solid Silver
  • Age: 1900-1940

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