■ TAZZA, Maison Puiforcat, Paris, after a model by Jean Puiforcat (Paris, 1897-1945) of circa 1930, produced as a silver-plated house edition, last quarter of the twentieth century, the shallow circular coupe spun in silver-plated metal raised on a column stem of faceted faux-lapis composition glass, the whole rising from a stepped skyscraper foot of graduated concentric tiers - the form belonging to the architectural vocabulary Jean Puiforcat developed in his Paris workshop across the late 1920s and 1930s, when his disciplined geometric silver, his use of mathematical proportion and his integration of semi-precious stones came to define the French Modernist silver tradition. Based on a model from Puiforcat's 1930s silver and lapis vocabulary; the present silver-plated edition, substituting a lapis-effect composition stem, was produced by the Maison Puiforcat as a house reissue in the closing decades of the twentieth century.
Good condition consistent with edition production and use. Please note that there is surface scratching to the interior of the coupe consistent with silver-plate. Plating intact throughout. Diameter 24.2 cm (9 ½ inches); height 9 cm (3 ½ inches).
The underside struck with the Maison Puiforcat house mark - the initials "EP" within a rectangular cartouche - and the stamped legend PUIFORCAT FRANCE, identifying the piece as belonging to the Maison's silver-plated reissue line and not to the original solid-silver autograph production.
Jean Puiforcat (Paris, 1897-1945), fourth-generation director of the Maison, was among the central figures of European Modernism in silver. His independent practice from 1922 onward - and his sustained collaboration with the family Maison thereafter - produced a body of silver and silver-plated work that defined the French Art Deco silver tradition, drawing on classical proportion, cubist geometry and the integration of semi-precious materials. Holdings of his original autograph silver are in the permanent collections of the Musée du Louvre, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The Maison Puiforcat has continued to issue selected models in silver-plated house editions, fully joining the Hermès group at the turn of the century.
See also:
□ Item #00007. Maison Puiforcat Candle Holder.