Sylvia Stave for C.G. Hallberg, Metal Amphora Vase, Art Deco, Sweden, 1936

Description

A pewter amphora vase produced by C.G. Hallberg of Stockholm, attributed to Sylvia Stave (1908-1994) on the basis of her tenure as the firm’s artistic director, 1931-1939. The piece is stamped with the Hallberg crowned CGH monogram, the Swedish tre kronor (three-crown) sterling-equivalent control mark for pewter, and the date code K8, identifying production in 1936. Stave was one of the most distinctive Swedish industrial designers of the 1930s and one of the few women working in metalsmithing at scale in this period. Her output for Hallberg includes both silver and pewter pieces in a vocabulary that bridged the late functionalist sensibility of Swedish Grace with the more reduced forms of mid-1930s Modernism. Her career was cut short by her marriage and emigration to France in 1939, after which she largely withdrew from professional design.

 The piece is constructed in hand-finished cast pewter, distinguishable from spun production by the slight surface variations in the body wall and handle joinery. The amphora form, with twin opposing handles raised from the shoulder of the body, references classical metalwork vocabulary that recurred in Swedish 1930s decorative production. Dimensions: H 21.5 × Dm ~13 cm. Width handle to handle 15.5 cm. Materials: Hand-finished cast pewter. Condition: Good – soft matte unpolished patina; multiple bumps and surface scratches consistent with ninety-year-old pewter.