Rare tea & coffee set, Odiot in Paris

Rare complete tea & coffee sterling silver set with a teapot, coffeepot, milk jug, sugar bowl, a kettle with stand and lamp & large tray. All marked with the stamp “Mon ODIOT” or  “Mon ODIOT PRéVOST & Cie” and  Minerva head. The tray and kettle are in plated silver which is quiet traditional for the silversmith during that period. The elegant “torso” shape with refined nature inspired decorative elements. Coat of arms of a French Nobel family in the centre of the tray.

Measures Tray: L 68cm x W 48cm. – Kettle: H 46cm x W 27cm.

By the prestigious silversmith Odiot in Paris, under the direction of Gustave Odiot, 1894-1906.

Lit: The prestigious silversmith “Maison Odiot” can trace its origins back to 1690, although it was Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, the grandson of the founder, Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard Odiot, who brought the firm into the spotlight. Born in 1763, master in 1785, Odiot succeeded his father in the business, constantly building the firm’s reputation and meeting popular success after the “Exposition de l’industrie” of Paris in 1802. During the Empire period, Odiot became the official silversmith to Emperor Napoleon. Soon Odiot was receiving orders from the French court, including a service made for Napoleon’s mother, styled ‘Madame Mère’, and as well as from across Europe and beyond. The Russian Imperial court regularly commissioned Odiot. Among these important commissions were a massive service for Countess Branicki, the niece of Gregory Potemkin, and Count Nikolai Demidoff. Odiot’s work during this period is characterized by strong neoclassical forms, ornamented with cast figural elements, often attached not by the traditional soldering but with the use of bolts and rivets (a method he inherited from his collaboration with the bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire). In 1823, CHARLES NICOLAS ODIOT will be the worthy successor of his father and will become the appointed supplier of King Louis-Philippe and the Orléans family. He will excel in the rocaille style revival, he will continue building on the firms’ success enhance their reputation and their list of Royal clients such as Prince de Joinville who will purchase the magnificent centrepiece which Odiot had exhibited at the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition. His SON GUSTAVE becomes in turn the silver and goldsmith of the great and powerful. It is he who will carry out the largest commission that the Odiot House has ever received: no less than three thousand gold cutlery for Said Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt. He will also obtain the title of Provider of the Court of His Imperial Majesty the Tsar. He is the last of the Odiot to hold the reins of the company. From father to son, the Odiot will have run the company until 1906, so for more than two centuries!