WMF was originally called Metallwarenfabrik Straub & Schweizer and started as a metalworking and repair workshop. Through mergers and acquisitions, the company was by 1900 the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter of household metal goods, mainly in the Jugendstil, or Art Nouveau style, designed in the WMF Art Studio under Albert Mayer, sculptor and designer, who was also director in the period 1884-1914. In the 1950s and 1960s, WMF gained a permanent place in private households due to its simple and functional designs. A successful business unit since the early 1960s has been the production of coffee machines for the hospitality industry. From 1920 WMF introduced the new small marks for silver plated objects. Between 1934-45, a two-dimensional three-letter mark “W, M, F” in a rectangle with an undecorated canopy was used. In 2016 the company was taken over by a French producer. The presented object is a beautiful silver plated and vermilion set of a coffee and teapot, together with a sugar bowl with lid and a milk bowl, on an octagonal plateau. It has a clear art deco style with an octagonal design in each case, also for the lids and handles. The handles and lid knobs are made of veneered wood with white painting to suggest ivory. They too have a sleek and always similar shape. On the inside a sugar bowl and milk jug are covered with gold, so-called vermeille. All objects bear only the above-mentioned mark “W.M.F.” in a rectangle with an undecorated dome, together with a content rating: 1.2 L for the coffee pot, 0.9 L for the teapot, 0.3 L for the sugar bowl and 0.25 L for the tea pot. The plateau is also signed “GERMANY”.

Condition: wood veneer on the coffee pot and teapot, some flaking off, a few hardly visible scratches on the plateau, otherwise in good status.