Tray from a tea service 1928

This tea service tray was crafted in silver by Jean G. Theobald, though we don’t know exactly when. It’s hard to look at this service and not see the influence of machine age design, that stripped-down sensibility. Its mirrored surfaces are so smooth you want to touch them! It's as if the artist has taken a series of cubes and prisms and arranged them in an efficient, gleaming formation. The reflections give the silver an atmospheric quality, and the angles and corners are softened by the light. Note the handles and lids, each with their own beveled, dark glassy elements. The linear forms and repeated geometric shapes call to mind the work of Bauhaus designers like Marianne Brandt, who approached functional objects with an eye toward both simplicity and elegance. Yet, here the artist has created a sense of luxurious utility. There’s something charming about its ambition to streamline and modernize such a quotidian activity as tea time.