Gorham Manufacturing Company (fl. 1831-present)
Monumental Spoon
sterling silver
Gift of Lenox, Incorporated

Among a cache of recent gifts related to the Gorham Manufacturing Company is one very large spoon and one huge coffeepot. The monumental sterling silver spoon is 48 inches in length and holds a gallon of liquid; the sterling silver coffeepot is 30-plus inches high and 29 inches across its spout and handle. Both were originally used by the company as advertising displays. The gift also includes nearly 1600 working drawings and 50 presentation drawings that illustrate how designs were developed for production by Gorham. Among these documents is a group by Danish émigré designer Erik Magnussen, whose Cubic Coffee Service for Gorham is among the treasures of the Museum and an icon of modernist design.

Complementing the drawings and silver are 1300 rare books and other volumes from the Gorham Manufacturing Company’s library that have been given to the RISD Library. At the same time, archival business materials were given to the John Hay Library at Brown University. (The gifts to RISD and Brown were initiated by Gorham’s parent company Lenox, Incorporated; in 1991 the Museum received a large number of objects from Gorham’s silver archives through former owner Textron Inc.) This additional gift secures Providence’s role as the center for the study of Gorham (the world’s largest maker of silver in the early 20th century) in the city where it was founded (1831) and flourished.

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