Georg Jensen Large Frequency Hurricane By Kelly Wearstler

For over a century, Georg Jensen has produced some of the finest objects in Scandinavian modern design, including silver tableware, serving pieces, home decor, jewelry and more, frequently partnering with leading artisans to expand its offerings and respond to shifting tastes. Known for minimal aesthetics that reference nature, the craftsmanship of this legendary Danish silverware firm has regularly married function with thoughtful and beautiful design.

Founder Georg Jensen (1866–1935) was born in the small town of Radvaad, Denmark, and began his training as a goldsmith at 14. After studying sculpture and then training with master silversmith Mogens Ballin, he established his own silver business in Copenhagen in 1904. By 1918, the company was successful enough to open a shop in Paris.

Jensen’s firm produced an incredibly vast range of silver objects, from serving dishes and barware to centerpieces and chandeliers. For his early work, which bore ornate floral details and other organic forms of Art Nouveau, Jensen looked to the splendors of the natural world. The 1905 Blossom teapot, for instance, was topped with a magnolia bud and deftly balanced on toad feet, while some of Jensen’s best-known flatware patterns included Lily of the Valley, introduced in 1913, and Acorn, which debuted in 1915.

Collaboration with outside designers, long before such partnerships were common in design, would lead to some of the company’s most popular and enduring work of the mid-century. Sigvard Bernadotte and Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe created collections, as did Henning Koppel, whose curvy 1952 Pregnant Duck pitcher is a Georg Jensen classic.

After evolving and expanding throughout the 20th century, Georg Jensen was acquired by Investcorp in 2012. Today, the company is a global luxury brand with more than 1,000 stores around the world. It continues to produce seductive new pieces, such as a tea service made with Marc Newson in 2015, as well as timeless heritage designs, including the relaunch in 2019 of the 1018 solid sterling-silver Tureen 270. In 2020, the firm introduced the Jardinière 1505. Sculptural and richly decorative, the never-before-realized showpiece is hand-hammered from sheets of the finest sterling silver and is based on a 1915 sketch from Jensen’s archives.

Find an exquisite collection of Georg Jensen serveware, ceramics, silver and glass today on 1stDibs.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Whether it’s a Chinese Han dynasty glazed ceramic wine vessel, a work of Murano glass or a hand-painted Scandinavian modern stoneware piece, a fine vase brings a piece of history into your space as much as it adds a sophisticated dynamic. 

Like sculptures or paintings, antique and vintage vases are considered works of fine art. Once offered as tributes to ancient rulers, vases continue to be gifted to heads of state today. Over time, decorative porcelain vases have become family heirlooms to be displayed prominently in our homes — loved pieces treasured from generation to generation.

The functional value of vases is well known. They were traditionally utilized as vessels for carrying dry goods or liquids, so some have handles and feature an opening at the top (where they flare back out). While artists have explored wildly sculptural alternatives over time, the most conventional vase shape is characterized by a bulbous base and a body with shoulders where the form curves inward.

Owing to their intrinsic functionality, vases are quite possibly versatile in ways few other art forms can match. They’re typically taller than they are wide. Some have a neck that offers height and is ideal for the stems of cut flowers. To pair with your mid-century modern decor, the right vase will be an elegant receptacle for leafy snake plants on your teak dining table, or, in the case of welcoming guests on your doorstep, a large ceramic floor vase for long tree branches or sticks — perhaps one crafted in the Art Nouveau style — works wonders.

Interior designers include vases of every type, size and style in their projects — be the canvas indoors or outdoors — often introducing a splash of color and a range of textures to an entryway or merely calling attention to nature’s asymmetries by bringing more organically shaped decorative objects into a home.

On 1stDibs, you can browse our collection of vases by material, including ceramic, glass, porcelain and more. Sizes range from tiny bud vases to massive statement pieces and every size in between.