An American Silver Six-Piece Tea and Coffee Set with Matching Tray
Tiffany & Co., New York, NY, 1920
designed by Albert Kahn, comprising a teapot, coffee pot, small pitcher, creamer, sugar bowl, and waste bowl and two-handled tray, the bodies of tapered cylindrical form with angular handles, the necks with band of running laurel, engraved on one side with monogram DSB, the oval tray engraved with matching monogram
marked on bases, teapot, coffee pot, sugar bowl, waste bowl numbered 18143A-5039, milk jug 18143A-5512, creamer 18143A-4164 tray 18902-7673
155 ozt 8 dwt
Height of coffee pot 7, Length of tray over handles 23 1/2 inches


Known as the "Architect of Detroit", Albert Kahn (1869-1942) was born in Prussia and immigrated to Detroit, MI at the age of eleven. He won a scholarship to study architecture in Europe and founded his own firm, Albert Kahn Associates, in Detroit in 1895. Kahn developed a innovative form of construction that replaced wood walls with reinforced concrete, which allowed for larger unobstructed interiors and greater fire protection. The Packard Motor Car Company factory, built in 1903, was the first project to incorporate Kahn's new construction method. In 1917 he designed both the half-mile-long Ford River Rouge Complex in Dearborn and the Detroit News Building. In 1928 he designed the 28-story Fisher Building in Detroit, which was noted as the most beautiful commercial structure of the year by the Architectural League of New York. His residential projects included the Cranbrook House in Bloomfield Hills, the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe as well as a number of homes in Indian Village, Detroit. He is also responsible for a number grand buildings on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, including Hill Auditorium, the Hatcher Graduate Library, the William L. Clements Library and Burton Memorial Tower. During his career, Kahn received more than 1000 commissions from Henry Ford as well as other national automakers. He died in Detroit in 1942.