A RARE AND EARLY DANISH SILVER NINE-LIGHT CHANDELIER, DESIGNED BY GEORG JENSEN FOR GEORG JENSEN SILVERSMITHY, COPENHAGEN, 1915-1919 |

the multi-level balsuter stem with ruffled-edge leaves and berry clusters, matching pendant finial, bands of lobes and beading, the scrolling arms chased with matching leaves, beaded edge drip pans with matching fixed nozzles above leaf and berry sconces, the chain interspersed with large balls with beaded collars below a domed ceiling canopy with leaf and berry ring, surrounded by four berry clusters 

Swedish financier Ivan Kreuger
Bukowski's, Stockholm, October 27, 1932, lot 516
Bukowski's, Stockholm, May 1984, lot 555 (probably)

ding to one ball of chain, slight dent at top of one arm (not visible from below) and some drip pans not perfectly horizontal, tiny spot of solder on globe, otherwise good condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Only a few chandeliers by Jensen are known, belonging to the very earliest years after the Company was created from the silversmith’s original small workshop.  The offered lot, Jensen design number 225 and with marks for 1915-1919, may be the earliest of the group. 

This was a time of incredible creativity at the young factory. Georg Jensen and Johan Rohde were creating many of the classic Jensen designs still popular a century later: the Grapevine tazze #263 and 264 (1918), the Grapevine wine coaster #229 (1917), the two-light candelabra #244 and #324 (1918 and 1919). 

The chandelier #225 seems to be the earliest of the documented Jensen chandelier designs.  It was made in a nine-light version – the offered piece – and a ten-light version with a different suspension chain, dated to circa 1919 when it was published in Georg Jensen: Holloware, the Silver Fund Collection (pp. 108-109).  

Both of these chandeliers seem to have been acquired by Swedish industrialist and financier Ivar Kreuger, who in 1919 ordered a closely related 18-light example, #345.  Finished in 1920, it was featured in the 1922 Studio Year Book and sold Sotheby’s, London, November 6, 2014, lot 52.

Two other chandeliers from this early period are a smaller-scaled seven-light design #318 (sold Christie’s, New York, January 19, 2005, “The Rowler Collection”, lot 64) and an unusual electrolier #256, with downwards-facing canopy rather than candle arms (ibid., lot 151).  After this post-World War I flurry of large-scale lighting fixtures, though, the Georg Jensen Silversmithy seems to have focused instead on tabletop items, easily exportable to its growing number of international boutiques.

The span of 1915-1920 was a time of innovation but also of change at the firm.  The German market, which before the war accounted for sometimes 90% of the workshop’s annual sales, was devastated by the war.  Stockholm art dealer Nils Wendel was a vigorous promoter of Jensen’s work after 1914, and when the silversmith formed a joint stock company in 1916, Wendel was a major stockholder.  This helped revitalize the organization, which acquired a larger workshop and a new Copenhagen retail boutique in 1918; the same year, a Paris branch opened on the rue St. Honoré.  This was against a background of personal tragedy, though, as in 1918 Jensen also lost his wife Johanne to the Spanish flu.

Ivar Kreuger
Wendel was probably the conduit though which Ivar Kreuger became interested in Jensen, owning in the end three of the firm’s early silver chandeliers.  Kreuger (1880-1932) made his first fortune in the building industry.  He expanded his father’s match factories into a world-wide empire that earned him the name “The Match King”, with monopolies in Europe and South America.  Often these were acquired in return for large-scale loans to the governments involved.

Kreuger lived a glamorous international lifestyle, keeping apartments in Stockholm, Paris, New York, and Warsaw, plus various yachts.  As primary shareholder in a Swedish film company, in 1924 he hosted on his private island Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Greta Garbo.  

His art collection included more than a dozen works by Anders Zorn, as well as earlier works by Van Ostade, Van Ruysdael, Sustermans, and Corot.  His holdings in Jensen silver ran to over 200 lots in the 1932 auction, including the three chandeliers of 9, 10, and 18 lights, as well as candelabra, tea sets, soup tureens, and huge sets of flatware.  

By 1931 Kreuger controlled over 200 companies, and was estimated to have over $350 million in loans out to various countries.  Historians differ as to whether Kreuger deliberately defrauded his investors, or exploited grey areas in a poorly-regulated financial world, or whether he was a gambler whose ever-larger risky investments were brought down by the 1929 crash. 

After the Swedish National bank declined to give him more loans – rumors of his instability were already affecting the national currency -  Kreuger was found dead in his Paris apartment in March 1932.  Declared a suicide at the time, his brother always maintained it was murder, a possibility supported by later evidence.  The financial fallout was extreme, as the Match King was found to have $250 million less in assets than he had claimed.  The “Kreuger Crash” as his empire disintegrated into bankruptcy hit Sweden and the U.S. particularly hard, and inspired the US Securities Acts of 1933-34.  Ayn Rand wrote a play inspired by Kreuger's story, called "Night of January 16th", which was a surprise hit on Broadway in 1935.