EISENLOEFFEL, Jan

Dutch silversmith and designer. After studying at the Rijksnormaalschool from 1892 to 1896, Eisenloffel joined the silversmiths Hoeker & Son, Amsterdam, designing works in revivalist styles. Following eight months in St Petersburg, where he learnt enamelling and nielloGLOSSARYThe art of decorating metals with fine lines engraved in black. The design is first cut into the metal and then filled with a black alloy that at high temperatures melts and fuses into the fine lines. techniques, Eisenloffel developed his own style. In 1900 he became artistic director of the newly installed metal workshop at the Amstelhoek factory, working in his new style for the first time. The Amstelhoek factory was founded in 1897 by W.C. Hoeker (of Hoeker & Son), initially as a ceramic factory, the metalwork and furniture departments being later additions. Hoeker wished to produce modern designs in non-precious metals such as copper and brass; the production of silver at Amstelhoek was always associated with his family's firm. The factory name was derived from the telegraphic address: Amsterdam-Hoeker.

In September 1900, on the initiative of the architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage and the designer Jacob van den Bosch (1868-1948), a new design galleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen)., het Binnenhuis, opened in Amsterdam as a retail outlet for the applied arts, with Eisenloffel among the collaborators. Eisenloffel's metalwork enjoyed wide distribution through Amstelhoek displays at het Binnenhuis, but in January 1902, he left Amstelhoek and het Binnenhuis to run his own workshop, designing copper and brass objects for machine production. In 1903 he founded a rival interior design firm, De Woning, together with Willem Penaat (1875-1957), who had directed the furniture department at Amstelhoek.

Eissenloef designed numerous utility objects, including dinnerware, lamps, clocks and candlesticks. Besides everyday and luxury articles, he also undertook larger items such as wall fountains, fireplaces, and grandfather clocks. His pieces won awards at arts and crafts exhibitions in Turin (1902), Dresden (1904) and Munich (1908).

His later work shows influences from Eastern cultures, in line with the international Art DecoGLOSSARYArt Deco was a popular design style of the 1920s and 1930s, named after the Paris 'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes' held in 1925, but, in fact, the direct successor to pre-1914 Art Nouveau. Even more than Art Nouveau, it emphasized the use of luxurious materials - lacquer, bronze, ivory, ebony, shagreen - but in contrast to it, stressed very simple, massive, geometric, zigzag forms. style.