French Sugar Cube Bowl & Tongs
Q: I bought a gold-colored metal sugar cube bowl at the French Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It has a mechanical sugar clamp that fits onto the top of the lid. The pusher at the top of clamp opens and closes the three clamps at the other end. I’m interested in its current value.
A: Mechanical, plunger-type tongs like this are often advertised as olive tongs or as tongs used to pick up ice cubes. Yours fit onto the top of a sugar bowl, so were meant to pick up sugar cubes. Since you bought this set at the French Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, you can assume it was made in France. It was probably new at the time, not an antique. We’ve seen sugar bowls and tongs like yours sell for under $70.
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I have a serving bowl, about 9 ” across at the widest part of the lip. It is marked on the reverse with a beehive looking symbol in blue and “AUSTRIA” also in blue. It has a raised and unglazed bottom rim.
In the well of the bowl is a hand painted image of three women in flowing gauzy attire and with cherubs about them, against a soft white background with the palest of blue clouds upon which the women are seated. It is signed “Carl Larsen”. There are several finely traced crack marks which, while visible, cannot be felt at all so I don’t think the bowl was ever actually broken. These are in the well of the bowl but do not mar any of the faces therein painted.
As the well of the bowl rises to the lip, there is a 5/8 ” band of gold above which is a 4″ field of dark emerald green with a gold lattice and foliage design. There is tiny beading both within the gold band, along both edges, and within the latticework.
I am intrigued by the artist and would appreciate learning more about him. Could he have been the painter of interiors by the same name? Further, how old would you estimate the bowl to be and of what, if any, value might it have?