(68) Pieces Danish Georg Jensen Flatware - 91.25 ozt. 32 spoons, 36 forks. All marked on backs. 

Largest Size: 1 1/8 x 7 1/2 in. 

Weight: 91.25 ozt. 

#6048 . 

After finishing his studies at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1892, Georg Jensen (1866-1935) tried his hand at clay sculptures, before moving to the applied arts. He began as a modeler at the Bing & Grøndahl porcelain factory and in 1898 opened his own pottery shop. In 1901 he abandoned ceramics and started working as a silversmith apprentice under the master and designer Mogens Ballin. In 1904 he opened his own silversmithy in Copenhagen, which came to be called Georg Jensen A/S (originally Georg Jensens Sølvsmedie A/S). In 1909 Jensen opened a shop in Berlin, and the following year he received a gold medal for the work he displayed at the International Exhibition in Brussels. The Berlin store went out of business during World War I, but the company obtained international attention by winning the grand prize at the 1915 World’s Fair, with William Randolph Hearst buying their entire exhibition. In 1917 Georg Jensen asked for help from his brother-in-law, Thorolf Møller, along with one of his biggest clients, the industrialist Peder Anders Pedersen (1869-1937). The two invested in the company, and P.A. Pedersen took over as chairman of the board, The interwar period caused the company to struggle further, and in 1925 Georg moved to Paris to open a new company separate from his original enterprise. It failed as well, and P.A. Pedersen generously invited him to act as a creative consultant at the company he had started, which he did so until his death. Pedersen’s son, Anders Hostrup-Pedersen (1902-1980), took over the company when his father died as well in 1937, and worked with Frederik Lunning in New York to make Georg Jensen a successful brand in America, convinced that capturing a market outside of Europe was the only way to survive. Although Anders remained the managing director until 1970, he spent most of the war years state-side, while still attracting prominent Danish artists like Sigvard Bernadotte, Henning Koppel, Nanna Ditzel to work at the Dutch factory alongside Søren Georg Jensen, the original founder’s son. He championed the international reputation of Danish crafts throughout his life, organizing exhibitions at the Louvre in 1958, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in 1960, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1962, to name just a few. In 1972, porcelain giant Royal Copenhagen purchased Georg Jensen and merged it with Orrefors Kosta Boda, Boda-Nova Höganäs Keramik, and Venini, to create the multinational Royal Scandinavia Group. In 2001, the private equity group Axcel Capital Partners bought the Group, and in 2012 Investcorp acquired the Georg Jensen brand from Axcel for $140 million. In 2022, Prince Felix of Denmark became a model for the brand, and the Finnish consumer goods group Fiskars purchased the brand from Investcorp in 2023, with production still taking place at the original Copenhagen factory.