Designer: Michael Graves (1934 – 2015)

Item: Swid Powell Salad Serving Set

Manufactured by: Reed & Barton for Swid Powell

Country of origin: United States

Year made: 1990

Materials: Silverpate over brass

Dimensions: 11” x 3” each

Condition: Mint in original box, New Old Stock with original packing materials. Box is lightly dented and has a few marks. We unsealed and removed the servers from the plastic as the plastic will damage the silver-plate and was beginning to stain it.

References: Tapert, Annette. SWID POWELL: Objects by Architects, Rizzoli, 1990; Stern, Jewel, Modernism in American Silver: 20th Century Design, Yale University Press, 2005.

Description: Another Swid Powell classic by the important American architect Michael Graves. These are very heavy and functional objects. These were quite popular and it appears many more were produced by Reed & Barton than the other Swid Powell serving pieces designed by Richard Meier, Robert Venturi or Ettore Sottsass, thus they are more commonly found in the marketplace. However, they are still an important, well documented and collected design and finding a mint set its original box is getting more difficult. Plus, recently we have observed the prices for these sets increase greatly. The trifold insert is not included with this set and we have only placed a photo of it for context.

Examples of this design can be found in significant museum collections such as the Dallas Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and a set is on permanent display in the silver collection at Yale University Art Gallery. We have sold several sets of these and we got another so we reactivated the listing on the website and added some photos of the set in the box.

When we purchased this New Old Stock set the servers were still sealed in their original plastic sleeves (shown) but we removed them because plastic will harm silver and was beginning to stain it. We polished them and they really are immaculate.