A metal water kettle on a tripod stand.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

The base of the samovar is a metal ring with six small round feet. Three metal supports enclosed in glass tubes rise up to support the kettle of silver metal. The kettle has a flat bottom, straight sides, a slightly rounded top edge, and a round lid with a short peg-like wooden handle. There are two downward curving handles on either side of the kettle and a small spigot with a metal and wooden handle near the base of the kettle.

Gallery Text

Bauhaus artists and designers sought to revolutionize society by radically reshaping the environments in which people lived. The objects in this case, products of the school’s metal, pottery, and carpentry workshops, reflect innovative approaches to the design of everyday household items—from the minimalist rethinking of the ornate tea glasses of eastern Europe to the transformation of chess pieces into pure geometric form. The design of decorative art objects at the Bauhaus was as strongly informed by modern artistic theories as the paintings and sculpture produced there. The table lamp, for example, made in the metal workshop when the constructivist artist László Moholy-Nagy served as its director, explores the circular form in three dimensions: as a disk, cylinder, and sphere. Now considered an icon of Bauhaus design, in 1924 the lamp failed to achieve the Bauhaus goal of creating objects well suited for industrial production, due to its high fabrication cost. Relatively few Bauhaus objects were mass-produced, in fact, despite the school’s efforts to establish partnerships with industry. The objects’ extreme modernity and frequently high prices made them less appealing to the general public and relatively uncommon outside the homes of artists and intellectuals and the Bauhaus buildings.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
BR49.260
People
Marianne Brandt, German (Chemnitz, Germany 1893 - 1983 Kirchberg, Germany)
Title
Samovar (Water Kettle and Tripod Stand)
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Samowar
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
1925
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/225530

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1520, Modern and Contemporary Art, Art in Germany Between the Wars
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Nickel silver, ebony, glass
Dimensions
27 x 26.6 x 18.3 cm (10 5/8 x 10 1/2 x 7 3/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: XRF analysis in three areas showed that the samovar had high levels of nickel, copper and zinc, corresponding to the white metal alloy nickel silver, sometimes called German silver. Kathy Eremin, January 2013

Inscriptions and Marks
  • stamp: on each of the 3 glass legs, German: FELSEN GLAS

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Walter Gropius
Accession Year
1949
Object Number
BR49.260
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Peter Nisbet and Emilie Norris, Busch-Reisinger Museum: History and Holdings, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 79, ill.
  • Peter Nisbet and Joseph Koerner, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, ed. Peter Nisbet, Harvard University Art Museums and Scala Publishers Ltd. (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2007), p. 97
  • Laura Muir, Object Lessons: The Bauhaus and Harvard, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2021), pp. 248, 278, plate 13, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • From Werkbund to Bauhaus: Art and Design in Germany 1900-1934, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 05/12/1980 - 04/26/1980
  • Bauhaus Art and Design, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 06/07/1982 - 10/30/1982
  • 32Q: 1520 Art in Germany Between the Wars (Interwar and Bauhaus), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 12/10/2018; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/05/2019 - 01/01/2050
  • The Bauhaus and Harvard, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 02/08/2019 - 07/28/2019

Subjects and Contexts

  • The Bauhaus

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu