Gustav Alsace

Fork and knife of his famous Belle Epoque design

Johann August Gustav Elsaß (born October 8, 1881 in Hanau ; † October 6, 1947 in Bremen ) was a German designer .

After completing his training at the State Drawing Academy in Hanau, he worked as a "designer" - earlier term for designers - from 1909 to 1945 in Bremen, succeeding Hugo Leven (director of the State Drawing Academy in Hanau, from Leven the famous cutlery design Bremen Lily comes from ) as Head of the design office at the silverware manufacturer Koch & Bergfeld , Bremen . The Belle Epoque design, brought onto the market by Koch & Bergfeld in 1930, comes from Alsace , the cutlery of which (form 66700) beat the rival design of the now much better known Bernhard Hoetger (form 66400) at the time. Today, the Alsace design is the main cutlery of the German embassies, alongside the classic shapes of spade and old thread, and one of the silver cutlery that is still best-selling today . The Hoetger cutlery has not been produced by Koch & Bergfeld to this day. Julius Feldtmann , who joined the company on April 20, 1881, was at his side as a modeller .

Alsace married Maria Josefa Friederike, born in 1908. Feldtmann.

literature

• Carl W. Schümann (Ed.): Silver from Bremen. 150 years of cutlery from Koch & Bergfeld zu Bremen. Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3879090963 .
• Wilhelm Hornbostel, Klaus Hansen, Bernhard Heitmann , Karin Kiemer, Klaus Benhof, Horst Heeren: craft and machine power. The silver manufacturer Koch & Bergfeld in Bremen. Museum for Art and Commerce Hamburg, 1999, ISBN 3923859422 .
• Reinhard W. Singer: The German silver cutlery. Biedermeier, Historicism, Art Nouveau (1805–1918). Verlag Arnold, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-925369-10-4 .