Marc Newson & Georg Jensen create limited edition mammoth tea service
The influential and world-renowned Australian-born industrial designer, Marc Newson, has been commissioned by the 111-year-old Danish design house, Georg Jensen, to create a limited edition tea service in sterling silver.
This is Marc’s first collaboration with the brand, and Georg Jensen’s first significant partnership with a contemporary artist since its association with Verner Panton 25 years ago. The Marc Newson tea service will be strictly limited to just 10 sets, and will be stamped with an ‘MN’ makers mark. The design and engineering phase spanned more than six months. It included the integration of state-of-the-art technology with the handcraftsmanship of Jensen’s legendary silversmith through the inclusion of rapid 3D prototyping in the initial phase of development.
The process was crucial to Newson’s exploration of shapes and experimentation with various possible technical solutions. The Edition pieces require more than three months of hand hammering, and will be made to order in the company’s workshop in Copenhagen.
The first set was forged by a third-generation silversmith whose grandfather worked in tandem with the company’s founder, Georg Jensen. Featuring the familiar qualities of a reductive sculptural approach, which is communicated through the craftsmanship of Georg Jensen, the service is made up of five individual pieces: a teapot, coffee pot, creamer, sugar bowl, and tray. Sculpted with the designer’s signature mastery of exquisite proportions, Newson’s lines evoke an impression of nature, as did Mr. Jensen’s inventive ‘organic’ forms, created over a century earlier.
The teapot, coffee pot, and creamer are finished with responsibly sourced mammoth handles while the tray’s perimeter is wound in a natural rattan. Newson exercises his affinity for the biomorphic outline by adding a near-invisible cut-out with sliding door to the tops of the tea and coffee pots. This gives the hand wrought, near-classic pieces a subtle yet significant suggestion of an ‘industrial’ solution, while presenting new challenges to the workshop as well as adding a modern contemporary paradigm to the Jensen oeuvre.
www.georgjensen.com