Holy Water Bucket, Jean E. Puiforcat, Paris Around 1935

Rare holy water bucket from the hand of the great master of Art Deco goldsmithing, Jean Puiforcat. First of all a sculptor, this greatest silversmith of the twentieth century, used to model or Shake these silverware creations in clay or modeling clay like real sculptures. This technique, combined with his obsession with the golden ratio and his almost religious search for purity and simplicity of forms, explains the strength and beauty of all the objects he left to posterity. After revolutionizing civil objects from the 1920s, the artist launches with great fervor the creation of liturgical objects, religious sculptures and church furniture. He spent several stays at the abbey of Solesmes where he befriended the silversmith monk Dom Le Corre. In no time, he created hundreds of pièces of religious silverware which still adorn the treasures of several French basilicas, cathedrals and abbeys today. The great mass of this production will be celebrated at the International Exhibition of 1937 where he presents a whole chapel filled with sumptuous chalices, ciboriums and other candle helders. The magnificent bucket that I propose here, presents all the characteristics of this legendary production: simplicity of the forms, reduced to the very essence of its use, presence of thé eter al circule and of a Greek cross rather than a Roman cross, robust and heavy quality of execution. It weighs 985 grams.