Modern Pitchers
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 The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics.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.
1930s English Vintage Modern Pitchers
Silver
Early 1900s American Antique Modern Pitchers
Sterling Silver
19th Century English Antique Modern Pitchers
Sterling Silver, Silver
1850s English Antique Modern Pitchers
Silver, Sterling Silver
1790s English Antique Modern Pitchers
Silver, Sterling Silver
1860s British Antique Modern Pitchers
Silver
1860s English Antique Modern Pitchers
Sterling Silver
1970s English Vintage Modern Pitchers
Sterling Silver
1720s English Antique Modern Pitchers
Silver, Sterling Silver
1810s English Antique Modern Pitchers
Silver, Sterling Silver
1940s American Vintage Modern Pitchers
Sterling Silver
1960s European Vintage Modern Pitchers
Silver, Sterling Silver
1820s Italian Antique Modern Pitchers
Sterling Silver
1930s American Vintage Modern Pitchers
Silver Plate
1930s Danish Vintage Modern Pitchers
Silver