Magnificent, Marvelous Martele: American Art Nouveau Silver

The Martcle line of handwrought silver in the Art Nouveau style by the Gorham Manufacturing Company is justly regarded as a major expression of that style on this side of the Artlantie Ocean. Officially introdticed at the intluential Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. Martele silver was widely admired, and was awarded a Grand Prix and many gold medals. The excitement created then by the new artistie line of Martele silver has been rekindled by this premiere exhibition of nearly three hundred works from the collection of Jolie and Robert Shelton. The mammoth and highly regarded Gorham Company developed from a small rewelry manufactory founded by Jabez Gorham (1792-1869) in Providence, Rhode Island, to the world's largest producer of sterling silver wares. In the process of this growth, the company Jistinguished itself by successfully combining new technological advances in the industry with exemplary design. So successful was Gorham in the closing years of the nineteenth century that it could devote considerable time, money and expertise to create an art line of hollowware produced entirely by hand. The new line in the latest cutting-edge taste departed dramatically from Gorham's flourishing line of machine-made commercial that and hollowwares. It was named Martele, from the French verb murteler. "the hammer." The line probably never would have come into existence without the driving influence and vision of two men, Gorham's energetic chief executive. Edward Holbrook (1849-1919) and its chief designer William Christmas Codman (1839-1923). To connoisseurs of silver, Codman is justly renowned for the development of the lavish Martele line, starting with designs in 1896 and commencing a limited production in 1897.
The resounding success of the Martele line at the 1900 Paris exposition prompted the Gorham Manufacturing Company to exhibit at the famed Turn international exposition of 1902 and the 1904 St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition, which is widely credited with introducing the Art Nouveau style to the American public. Gorham's wares met with critical and popular acclum at these showings and attracted a glittering clientele for the Martele line. The company was soon producing silver for bicycle and motorcar magnate Albert A. Pope, publisher William Randolph Hearst, oil tycoon Harry Ford Sinclair and financier Charles Schwab. The exuberant outline and exquisite finish of Martele silver later appealed to cosmetics empress Helena Rubinstein, a pioneer collector of American nineteenth and early twentieth-century decorative arts. The resurgence of interest in the Art Nouveau style which began in the 1950s and has steadily escalated ever since has caused Martele silver to emerge as one of the most significant. American achievements in that complex and diverse style. This exquisite volume chronicles both the development of the Martele line and the assembling of the most significant collection of Martele silver yet formed. The collection of Jolie and Robert Shelton covers the history of this celebrated line from historical and aesthetic viewpoints, providing a rich visual record of this dazzling accomplishment in American silver.