GRAPE tray 296

This round tray with handles from 1918 is in the Art Nouveau style. The grape details on the handles demonstrates Georg Jensen’s admiration for Nature

Not all silversmiths have the ability or the patience to become a tray maker! Trays are the most difficult and time consuming type of hollowware to make – it takes a lot more than 4 years of apprenticeship to learn how to make trays and you do not learn it by reading a book but by practice, practice and more practice.

Silver in itself is a very soft material so if you cut out a sheet of silver, put some handles on and then place a jug of water on the tray, the tray will simply give way/collapse – it does not have the strength to hold practically anything. To give it that strength the silversmith must hammer on the silver in a certain way over and over again. The goal is to obtain the right span and the right hardness and part of the long process is to hammer lightly in the curvature with 5-6 different hammers.