Swirl a little charm into your everyday with this Vintage 1978 Michelson Sterling Silver Spoon! This partially gold-plated spoon features an enameled heart-shaped handle with a white horse, blue sky, and heart designed by Vibeke Alfelt. It is a beautiful piece of silverware for any occasion!
Collector's Notes:
Vintage 1978 Michelsen Enameled Sterling Silver Gold Wash Commemorative Spoon
Condition: Very Good
Expected wear for age; . Inspect images and video.
Size: 6 1/2" length; 1 1/2" maximum width
"The Christmas spoon issued by A. Michelsen for 1978 was designed by the Danish painter Vibeke Alfelt, and is of gilded sterling silver with an enameled terminal.
Alfelt described the design in these terms: “The white horse symbolizes winter, coming riding across the blue sky. The red winter sun sends the light down to earth, where the warm heart of man brings the peace and joy of Christmas to all.” The bowl is plain and gilded, the stem slender and tapering, and the whole has the graphic clarity that distinguishes the best of the later spoons in the series.
A. Michelsen recorded that thirty-eight separate hand operations went into each spoon. The blanks were cut with special tools, sawn and drilled by hand, then filed and polished before enameling; each was enameled and fired three times before being gilded and buffed.
A. Michelsen was founded in Copenhagen in 1841 and appointed court jeweler to the Danish crown in 1848. The firm issued its first Christmas spoon and fork in 1910, following the Christmas plates begun by Bing & Grøndahl in 1895 and Royal Copenhagen in 1908, and what had been intended as a single commemorative piece proved popular enough to become an annual issue, each subsequent spoon marked with its year.
Until 1967 the earlier spoons remained available and were struck to order. In 1968 A. Michelsen was absorbed into the Georg Jensen silversmithy, which itself came into the Royal Copenhagen group a few years later; the dies for the earlier years were destroyed, and production was limited thereafter to the current year alone, which is what makes the later spoons genuinely limited. Vibeke Alfelt (1934–1999) was the daughter of the painters Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt, and exhibited from the age of fourteen, when she took part in the COBRA group’s decoration of the house at Bregnerød alongside her father in 1949. The horse became the dominant subject of her painting, which is what makes her the natural choice for this design." - Knightsbridge Antiques
