Great WMF Silverplate Pewter JEWEL BOX c 1900 Art Nouveau

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Great WMF Silverplate Pewter JEWEL BOX c 1900 Art Nouveau :
$295.00

Great! WMF Silverplate Pewter JEWEL BOX c 1900 Art NouveauTHE FACTORY - WMF ( Wurttembergische Metallwaren Fabrik )
The firm WMF were producing metal ware in different styles:
* Classical* Art Nouveau ( Jugendstil )* Art Deco* Celtic / Viking revival* Bauhaus* Hotel ware
The Celtic / Viking revival style was introduced to compare against the English Arts & Crafts movement.1853 - The Founding of the Company
In 1853, Daniel Straub, a miller from Geislingen, joined forces with the Schweizer Brothers to form the \"Metallwarenfabrik Straub & Schweizer\" in Geislingen. This was the second company to be founded by Straub - previously in 1850, from the nucleus of a small repair workshop, which he had set up to work on the construction of Geislingen\'s famous railway incline, he had founded the Maschinenfabrik Geislingen. This company was involved mainly in manufacturing mill turbines and traded throughout Europe.
During the first world war, Hugo Debach, who would later become director-general of WMF, took the initiative in having experiments conducted in chemical and thermal tinting of metals. Shortly before 1927 he founded the Neue Kunstgewerbliche Abteilung (NKA: New Division for the Applied Arts) at WMF for upgrading metals. The brilliant colors and the boundless possibilities for design arising from this new technique met with resounding success at the time.
1900 - WMF becomes an International Company
Under Carl Hegele the company gained international standing. At the turn of the century the factory in Geislingen employed 3,000 workers. By 1910, this number had already grown to 4,000, making WMF the largest company in W?rttemberg at this time. Sales catalogues were printed in twelve languages. Subsidiary companies in London, Warsaw and Vienna opened up export markets.
1905 Art Nouveau
Under the direction of Albert Mayer the WMF studio was influenced by the art nouveau style. The product range was modernized and considerably extended. In 1905 WMF acquired a majority holding of the Cologne company Orivit AG, which manufactured products from \"Orivit\", a tin alloy.THE DESIGNERS
Between 1900 and 1907 many art nouveau designs went into production, some by well known designers like Albin M?ller and Peter Behrens. Albert Mayer, the artistic director, was the person who was responsible for these changes. The international success and the resulting economic profit gave room for experimenting with new techniques and for developing a different line of decorative products for a new group of clients without the need for instant profitability. Hugo Debach (director since 1904) established the \"Neue kunstgewerbliche Abteilung\" (NKA) in 1925. As a result of this some new technical innovations in the field of glass and metal were made followed by further innovations in 1935 when a ceramic studio was added to the NKA. It was also Hugo Debach who brought Karl Wiedmann and ceramics expert Gerda Conitz to the WMF. During these years there were also quite some well known designer like Prof. Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot, Prof. Richard Riemerschmid and Prof. Paul Haustein working as freelance designers for the WMF. In the 1950s also Prof. Wilhelm Wagenfeld Designed for the firm.