Designer: Robert Venturi (1925 – 2018), and Denise Scott Brown (b. 1931); Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.

Item: Venturi Carving Set and Serving Platter Spoon

Manufactured by: Reed & Barton for Swid Powell

Country of origin: United States

Year made: Carving Set 1989, Platter Spoon 1990

Materials: Silverpate over brass and steel

Dimensions: 14” longest

Condition: Mint in original boxes with original packing materials. New Old Stock

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

Description: This is the second full set we have handled and in the harder-to-find mint and unused condition making this set worthy of a public collection. This is an important postmodern design classic by Robert Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown for Swid Powell. Both the carving set and serving platter spoon are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Yale University Gallery of Art and other public collections. Like many of the Swid Powell products, these were not inexpensive when new. When introduced in 1989 the price of the carving set was $150.

Venturi and Borwn's own website states about these: "Each of these pieces is designed as a stylized and abstracted representation of one of the three Classical orders in architecture -- decorative and witty, we hope, but not crazy. Moreover, practically speaking, this flatware pattern is meant to be beautiful, simple, elegant, weighty, smooth, and very high quality."