An American sterling silver set of tumblers or julep cups from the Arts & Crafts period by Marie Zimmermann (1879-1972), a noted metalsmith, jeweler and designer working during the opening decades of the 20th century in New York City. The tumblers come from the artist's estate and date circa 1915, during the period she maintained a workshop studio and showroom at the National Arts Club at Gramercy Park. One of the vessels is illustrated on page 63, fig. 2.20 of The Jewelry and Metalwork of Marie Zimmermann, 2012.
Each footed tumbler is skillfully finished by hand in the Arts & Crafts style with flaring rims, spot-hammering, and chased Gothic arches. Each vessel is in very good condition with a substantial weight of 8.3. oz / 234 g., measuring 4.25 in. height x 3.63 in diameter (at rim), stamped Sterling under her Marie Zimmermann / Maker artist's cipher underfoot.
After studies at the Pratt Institute and the Art Students' League in New York, Zimmermann took a suite of rooms at the National Arts Club where she maintained a workshop studio and showroom for a number of years. Zimmermann's creative and innovative designs for jewelry, funerary monuments, and ornamental accessories for home and garden were eclectic, often experimental, and informed by her life-long interests in the historical design and the natural world. Period journalists referred to her as "master of a dozen crafts perhaps the most versatile artist in this country" and "the last of the great metal craftsmen the modern Benvenuto Cellini." Her designs were exhibited widely throughout her career and today, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City holds the largest collection of her objects, acquiring their first example in 1922.
Examples of her creations in jewelry and metalwork are also in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, and the Columbus Museum of Art.
For additional information, please see The Jewelry and Metalwork of Marie Zimmermann, American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation and Yale University Press, 2012.
