Designer: Richard Meier (born 1934)

Item: Salad Servers

Manufactured by: Reed & Barton for Swid Powell

Country of origin: Japan

Year made: 1989

Materials: Stainless steel with black epoxy cloisonné inlay

Dimensions: Fork is 12 ¾” long x 1” wide, spoon is 12” long x 2 ¼” wide

Condition: Excellent. The back of the spoon and handles have some very light scratches from where they slid around in someone’s utensil drawer, but these appear to be barely, if ever used.

References: Tapert, Annette. SWID POWELL: Objects by Architects, Rizzoli (1990).

Description: Here is an extremely scarce set of Richard Meier salad servers in stainless and cloisonné. This is an important design by Meier for Swid Powell and produced by Reed & Barton. Meier designed a few versions of servers for his flatware that were produced by Reed & Barton. One design is shorter with broader dimensions in the handles and ends, and were produced in both silverplate and stainless, which themselves can be hard to find. We have a silver-plate of that design set also on offer in the shop. However, this design is nearly impossible to find suggesting that it was only produced in very limited quantities and likely for only a very short period of time. We speculate that the black epoxy cloisonné inlay inserts on the handles may have been expensive and problematic for manufacturing, and may have lacked the durability needed for this type of utilitarian object. This is only the second set we have ever seen in many years of looking. In our considered opinion these are the pinnacle of the Swid Powell serving pieces produced by Reed & Barton. We have included a photo of the trifold insert that would have been included in any of the boxed sets by Reed & Barton for Swid Powell, but this is not included in this sale and is for reference purposes only. A photo of these servers are found on page 135 of the Tapert book and the original design drawings for these can be found on Meier’s website. Meier’s designs for Swid Powell are in many major museum collections.