Christofle Animal Teapot

Beautifully crafted and endlessly charming, this exceptionally rare silverplate teapot by the prestigious firm of Christofle & Cie. takes the form of a stylized wild hare. It was designed by Emile Reiber, a highly regarded architect, designer and Prix de Rome winner who joined Christofle as head of the workshop of composition and drawing in 1865. The design is after a Meiji-period Japanese bronze from the famed collection of Henri Cernuschi, an Italian banker and savvy collector of the arts of the Far East. 

Japonism was rising quickly in popularity in France around the time this teapot was created. Japan had opened borders and started trade with Europe in the 1860s, inspiring new ideas among European designers and artists like Reiber as they saw the arts of Japan firsthand for the first time. Cernuschi exhibited his collection at the Palais de l’Industrie at the Orientalist Exhibition in 1873-74, where Reiber spent weeks sketching the bronze artifacts — drawings he then translated into luxurious silverplate objects for Christofle.

Based in Paris, Christofle & Cie. has been manufacturing high-quality luxury items since 1830. Christofle silver has graced the tables of European and Asian nobility for decades, and it is the tableware of choice on such luxury transportation as the Orient Express and the Trans-Siberian Railway. Innovative and revolutionary, the Christofle name is synonymous with elegance and style.

An identical Christofle teapot is in the permanent collection of Musée d’Orsay (Paris). See link here

Circa 1890

Stamped “CHRISTOFLE” 

10″ wide x 5″ deep x 5 1/2″ high