Anna Petrus
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a pair of pewter candlesticks, Herman Bergmans Konstgjuteri, Stockholm probably early 1920s.
Details of brass, signed Anna Petrus Herman Bergmans Konstgj. Height 24.5 cm.
Exhibitions
The Worlds Fair in Paris 1925, this model was included.
New York, 1927, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The model was included in the show called 'Swedish Contemporary Decorative Arts'.
Literature
Marie Rehnberg, 'Anna Petrus Skulptör, industrikonstnär och pionjär' (2009), 2022, Arena Förlag, pp 82-83.
Hedvig Hedqvist, Rikard Jacobson, Jan von Gerber, 'Modernt Svenskt Tenn', 2004, p 21.
Gregor Paulsson (ed), Svenska Slöjdföreningens årsbok, 1926 (Yearbook for The Swedish Association of Crafts 1926), p 59, the model depicted together with an inkstand also designed by Anna Petrus.
More information
ANNA PETRUS (1886-1949)
Anna Petrus is described as an independent person with a strong personality. She seems to have been a modern woman driven by passion for her work.
In her studio on Riddargatan in Stockholm, Anna Petrus began to take an interest in arts and crafts in the early 1920s. She began to create several different types of trays in different kinds of materials; pewter, copper and sometimes with elements of silver. The trays were provided with richly chiselled decoration and were sometimes combined with artistically carved oak lions. She continue with creating other works of art and collaborated with the foundry Herman Bergman to have her early models cast in pewter.
In 1922, Anna Petrus organized a show in her studio where she showed the tables she had created entirely herself, but also tables with a framework designed by Uno Åhrén. The latter were produced by Estrid Ericson and Firma Svenskt Tenn.
Anna Petrus was early on contracted to have some models to be launched and produced by Svenskt Tenn. Most of them are still being produced today.
Her design language was truly original, all but marked by the spirit of the times. The male lion was a motif that often returned in her designs. The lions she used in various contexts from the beginning of the 1920s until the 1930s differ from each other but are equally unmistakable designed by Anna Petrus.
Designer
Anna Petrus was a sculptor and designer at the beginning of the 20th Century. After her death, Anna Petrus' work was almost forgotten, but in recent years, it been rediscovered. And now, her sculptures are sought after-objects.
She was born Anna Petersson, the daughter of a medical professor and a countess, and took the surname when she studied at the Academy of Arts. She inherited a small fortune at age 11 when her mother died, which enabled her to educate in London and travel to Italy and France. Anna Petrus had her international breakthrough at the Paris World Fair in 1925, where she displayed pewter and cast iron objects in the Swedish Grace style. At the time, pewter was a material that was considered unfashionable, but its popularity increased with designers like Anna Petrus.
In 1924, she began collaborating with the newly established Firma Svenskt Tenn. The lion became a recurring motif in Anna Petrus' production as sculptures and decorations.
