Georg Jensen

Know the business

The useful overview.

Georg Jensen is both a person’s name and the name of a design business. The Danish silversmith lived from 1866 to 1935 and opened his Copenhagen workshop in 1904. His training crossed goldsmithing and sculpture, and the company’s account connects his work with Art Nouveau and the natural world. Those beginnings help explain the sculptural fruit, flowers and foliage associated with his designs without making every later Georg Jensen object his personal creation.

A large silver Tureen and Tray, dated about 1925 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows how decoration could serve a practical purpose. Its naturalistic cast elements also provide handles for a substantial vessel. The museum places Jensen’s metalwork alongside his earlier sculptural studies and ceramics work. For a collector, the object offers a specific example of that relationship between modeled ornament, scale and use, rather than a formula for attributing every organic-looking piece.

Johan Rohde’s contribution is especially useful for separating designer from manufacturer. Cooper Hewitt traces his relationship with Jensen to a private commission in 1904 and work for the smithy from 1906. Its discussion of a silver bowl identifies a 1916 Rohde design represented by an example made around 1955. A familiar company name can therefore connect an object to a workshop while leaving the design credit and manufacturing date as separate questions.

Harald Nielsen offers another design vocabulary within the same house. The company dates his Pyramid flatware pattern to 1927 and explains its stepped finial through the period’s interest in Egyptian forms. The geometric treatment differs from the founder’s flowering ornament. Reading the pattern name together with the designer and design year makes a more useful starting point than treating “Georg Jensen style” as one fixed appearance across decades.

Henning Koppel’s work brings the story into the postwar period. The company places the sculptor’s collaboration in the mid-1940s and describes a sterling-silver pitcher made in 1955, followed by a polished stainless-steel reissue in 2009. That history is a reminder that a recognizable silhouette can migrate between materials. The date associated with a celebrated design is not, by itself, the age or metal specification of the example in front of you.

Museum cataloging makes these distinctions concrete. The National Gallery of Victoria records Koppel as designer and Georg Jensen Sølvsmedie as manufacturer of its silver Fish dish, model 1054. It separates the 1956 design from manufacture around 1980. Such records are valuable comparison points because they identify a particular object, with an accession number and dimensions, rather than assigning the same date to every example of a model.

The present corporate setting is another distinct part of the history. Fiskars Group announced completion of its acquisition on 1 October 2023, purchasing all shares in Georg Jensen Investment APS. Its current brand portfolio still includes Georg Jensen. This establishes the group relationship checked in November 2026; it does not establish unchanged ownership, workshops, personnel or production arrangements throughout the business’s history.

Names & chapters

How the story developed.

1. 1904

   Copenhagen workshop

   Georg Jensen establishes his silver workshop.

2. 1927

   Pyramid design

   Harald Nielsen’s geometric flatware pattern is dated to this year.

3. 1956 / c. 1980

   Design and manufacture

   NGV distinguishes these dates for its Koppel fish dish.

4. 2023

   Fiskars acquisition

   The group completes its acquisition on 1 October.

Follow an interest

What to explore.

• Silver hollowware
• Flatware
• Jewelry
• Danish design

Check the details

Before you buy.

Read the current item and checkout terms. These notes summarize dated company policies, not a promise about your order. Applicable consumer rights still matter.

Open the references

Research this name.

1. Collect Silver guide

   Read the flatware guide

   Compare the pattern, individual utensil and construction before interpreting an object’s weight.

2. Collect Silver guide

   Explore silver jewelry

   Follow the wider collecting category, then record the materials and condition of the particular piece.