A large silver cutlery set by Emil Lettré in a fitted case
149 pieces. Comprising 24 dinner knives and forks, 23 dinner spoons, 24 starter spoons and forks, 19 starter knives, 22 fish forks, 24 fish knives, 22 teaspoons, two large soup ladles, six sauce ladles, two carving knives and forks and 23 other serving pieces. The spoons and forks with straight, tapering handles, the knives with angular handles. All handles with hand-engraved diamond motifs on the upper faces. In a large fitted wooden case with five shelves. L of table knives 24.5; of forks 22 cm, weight without knives and steel parts approx. 11,180 g.
Berlin, unmarked, the steel blades signed "LETTRÈ", 1920s, case with company mark of Max Tietze, Berlin.
Ludwig and Estella Katzenellenbogen were among the great collectors and patrons of the arts in pre-war Berlin. In their elegant city apartment at Keithstraße 8 and their manor house in Freienhagen, Brandenburg, which they acquired in 1913, the couple surrounded themselves with valuable antiques and a collection of paintings and drawings by the great German and French Impressionists and Expressionists, including works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Max Liebermann and Paul Klee. For the ballroom in Freienhagen, Estella Katzenellenbogen commissioned Lovis Corinth to paint a cycle of eleven paintings, some of which are now in the collection of the Berlinische Galerie.
The Katzenellenbogens were regular visitors to the elegant rooms of Emil Lettré's workshop at Unter den Linden 71, where they commissioned prestigious silverware for their lavish parties, including numerous centrepieces and large platters as well as an extensive cutlery set, which was apparently custom-made to their specifications.
When the couple separated in the late 1920s, the collection was divided between them. Estella Katzenellenbogen emigrated with her three children first to Switzerland in 1938 and then to the United States in 1940, where she finally settled in the intellectual and artistic émigré community of Los Angeles.
She managed to take the Lettré silver and parts of the art collection with her to California. Five paintings from the Corinth cycle, which had survived the war in the depot of an Amsterdam gallery, also found their way back to her in the USA after 1945.
As of 1942, she worked there with her friend Karl Nierendorf and managed his International Art Gallery in Hollywood, which she took over at the end of 1945.
Provenance
Collection of Estella and Ludwig Katzenellenbogen.