Excerpt From “Collectors Weekly”

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In 1859, the company gained particular acclaim after Mary Todd Lincoln selected a tea and silverware set in its Josephine pattern (the first made on Gorham’s new drop press) for use at the White House—these pieces are now part of the collection at the National Museum of American History. For the United States’ 100th birthday in 1875, First Lady Julia Grant commissioned Gorham to create a celebratory Century Vase, which included allegorical depictions of American history. Made from more than 2,000 oz of sterling silver, the Century Vase’s presentation at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia gave the company additional good publicity. However, Gorham’s mass-produced sterling flatware was also priced so that the middle class could afford it. Beginning in 1863, Gorham became a powerhouse in plated silver, and it left coin silver behind for sterling silver in 1868, producing everything from flatware such as knives, forks, and spoons to hollowware pieces ranging from coffee pots to serving bowls. By the 1880s, Gorham had opened a shop in the Ladies’ Mile, New York’s tony shopping district, and was one of the country’s most successful silver producers, turning out thousands of Victorian tea sets, napkin rings, salt cellars, serving dishes, and more. Its 1873 commission for the president of the Universal Life Insurance Company, Col. Henry J. Furber, would become the company’s largest, with 606 pieces of cutlery, flatware, and serving dishes, plus 132 pieces of holloware. Wilkinson eventually became the chief designer at Gorham, creating several popular patterns for the company including the Medallion flatware patented in 1864, which featured a circle with a neoclassical bust inside. Yet the most important Gorham designer during the late 19th century was the English-trained William J. Codman, who joined the firm in 1891. Codman helped develop the Martelé line, which was made of an even softer silver than sterling (.950 fine instead of .925), allowing Gorham silversmiths to hammer it into flowing, intricate Art Nouveau shapes (“marteler” is the French verb for “to hammer”). Gorham even created signature show pieces in the hand-hammered Martelé style, most famously a silver dressing table and cushioned stool, which beat Tiffany in the silver furniture category at the 1900 Paris World Fair. Over the years, Gorham was also responsible for creating trophies for major sporting competitions like the Indianapolis 500’s Borg-Warner trophy, designed by Robert J. Hill in 1935. Other successful flatware patterns made by Gorham include the Rococo-style Strasbourg, first produced in 1897, the floral-accented Buttercup (1899), and King Edward (1936). Designed by Codman in 1895, the Chantilly pattern, featuring abstracted floral scrollwork, remains one of the most popular flatware patterns in the world to this day. During the 1920s, the Danish-born designer Erik Magnussen led Gorham into the future with geometric Art Deco styles, as seen on his Cubic coffee set featuring triangular facets with varying metal finishes. Gorham was purchased by Textron in 1967, which decreased the trademark’s quality, and after trading hands several times to companies such as Dansk International Designs and the Brown-Forman Corporation, Gorham was purchased by Department 56 in 2005 as part of the Lenox holdings transaction. Lenox filed for bankruptcy in 2009.