A Stunning Gorham Martele, sterling silver Art Nouveau hand-hammered tea & coffee set complete with original tray and tilting hot water kettle on stand with burner. Round form, with typical pronounced hand-hammered surface and nouveau style flower decoration. 

Hallmarked on the underside as shown. 

Martele silver items were made from the higher standard .9584 silver as opposed to the sterling standard being .925 

Set consists of: Tilting how water kettle on stand with burner 14.5″ tall Coffee Pot 9.5″ tall TeaPot 7.5″ tall Sugar Bowl & Cover 7.25″ tall Waste Bowl 4″ tall Creamer 5.75″ tall Large Two Handled Tray 31.5″ x 21″ 

Set weighs a total of approx 11,500 grams = 369.40 troy oz = 405.25 regular ounces = 25 1/3 lbs. Great quality, condition, style, maker & size   

Provenance: This tea set was made as a special order for Volney & Mabel Williamson, 1910. Volney D.Williamson (1865 – 1920) was one of Spokane’s early millionaires due to gold, silver, coal & precious mineral mining interests across North America, Australia & Africa. While working the Santa Rosa mine, he discovered the first turquoise mine in Mexico. In 1905 he married Mabel C.Cotter of Denver Colorado. According to Gorham’s Martele archives the coffee pot took 86 hours for the skilled silversmith to make and another 74 hours just to do the chasing. The tilting kettle on stand took 135 hours to create & 100 hours to do the chasing. The net cost just to make all 7 pieces was $1918.00   

Martele was an exclusively handcrafted range, whose name was derived from the French ‘marteler’ (to hammer) denoting the production technique used, ie hammered or handwrought. Martele was produced by Gorham from 1897 to 1930 under the guidance of William Codman. Codman being a fine English silversmith brought over in 1891 for this express purpose. According to Charles Carpenter, author of Gorham Silver, the 9584 standard of silver was used as it was more malleable and easier to work by hand. According to Pristo author of Martel:Gorham’s Nouveau Art Silver, he states that the higher standard of silver was used to meet the French standard of .950 and the English Brittania standard of .9584, so that the silver would be of the highest grade and could not be considered inferior, especially in light of all the awards won. Martele silver was featured at the 1900 Paris Exposition, 1902 Turin Exposition, and the 1904 St. Louis Fair, where Martele won most of the awards. During its entire production only about 4,800 pieces were made, pieces, not sets, and of these only 86 tea sets were crafted, this being one of those, although due to the price of silver jumping up in the 1980s, much Martele silver was shamefully melted down. Due to the fact that all Martele silver was handmade, each set tends to be unique in style. This tea set is a very good example and is in very good condition, no monograms, inscriptions or removals, also rare to be so complete, original and in such excellent condition

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