Georg Jensen Terra

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.

Beautiful plants deserve beautiful homes. It’s time to introduce antique and vintage planters and jardinieres to your home’s interiors and outdoor garden area.

The word “jardiniere” has roots in French, but the appeal of these vessels is global. The popularity of jardinieres — ceramic pots intended for cut flowers or plants — quickly gained traction in the United States during the start of the 20th century, when you could find them in some middle- and upper-class American homes. Jardinieres had already been coveted goods overseas for at least a couple of centuries by then, as intricate planters crafted from Chinese porcelain or gilded-bronze versions from Japan could be found in the living rooms of wealthy Europeans.

Today, the love for planters and jardinieres knows no bounds. And whether you consider yourself a proper gardener or merely a doting plant parent, there is likely a use for a planter inside or in the lively outdoor space around your home.

Outside, a pair of marble and terracotta planters or cast-iron urns designed in the neoclassical style can add a stately touch to your landscape design while helping establish boundaries between the areas you’ve created for gardening and entertaining.

Bare corners in your living room or dining room can often be difficult to populate with furnishings that fit just so, and a planter can change that. While it’s possible to get maximal impact from minimalist pottery — an understated mid-century modern planter could deliver on that front — you might be pining for an on-trend planter with pizzazz. Look to an outwardly angular fiberglass design decked out in bright colors to give your blooms a run for their money, while mounted or vintage hanging vessels can serve as the frame for nature’s organic artwork, quite literally taking your gardening skills to the next level.

Browse a broad collection of antique and vintage planters and jardinieres on 1stDibs today.