MARIUS HAMMER BIO:

Marius Hammer built up and managed Norway's largest goldsmith's workshop in the decades around 1900. By investing heavily in marketing and international launch, he helped make Norwegian enamelwork an important export item. In a golden age for Norwegian handicrafts, Hammer's company also delivered many works that are among the main works of Norwegian goldsmithing.

Hammer was a third-generation goldsmith in the traditional craft town of Bergen. In his father's workshop, he received training in an ancient guild craft, but his ambitions were greater than running a small workshop, as his father and grandfather had done. During his studies in Hamburg and Berlin around 1870, he gained insight into new techniques and production methods, and from 1871 he built up his workshop to become the largest in Bergen in a few years. He had modern aids such as gas and electricity installed early on.

The workshop made all types of goldsmith's wares: centerpieces, jugs, coffee sets, cutlery, jewelry and much more. However, from the 1880s, Hammer focused on the tourist market and became a major producer of souvenirs and other luxury items in filigree and enamel. He built up a network of branches in the well-known tourist destinations in Western Norway, and he also supplied large quantities of goods to businesses abroad, including London. From 1885, Hammer's company was court supplier to the Prince of Wales, and somewhat later the German Emperor Wilhelm II became an avid customer. The main product was filigree work with window enamel – glass mosaics in all the colors of the rainbow built up on a fragile network of thin, gilded threads. Small and large Viking ships in various price ranges for tourists, boots, teaspoons, jewelry and much more were produced in a wide variety and in large quantities. Around 1914, the company reached its peak with about 130 employees.

The key to Hammer's success in the tourist market was very active marketing, including through participation in the major world exhibitions. Together with the Kristiania firms Tostrup and David-Andersen, Hammer made enamelware one of the most important Norwegian exports.

In addition to souvenir production, Hammer also had an important production of corpus works, i.e. objects such as bowls, jugs and mugs. He invested heavily in prestige works for exhibition purposes and for the upper bourgeoisie, and a number of essays and other large corpus works are of greater artistic interest than souvenir production. Hammer engaged outstanding designers, and over the prosperous years from about 1900 to about 1920 the firm produced works that are now considered masterpieces in the goldsmith's art of the period.

Marius Hammer became Bergen's richest craftsman; he lived at the elegant country estate Christinegård in Sandviken and had himself driven in a two-horse carriage to his shop in Strandgaten. He built up a large collection of antiques and also traded in these in his shop.

With the outbreak of World War I, the tourists disappeared, and after the war, times became tougher for the luxury production that Hammer had focused on. The company was converted into a limited liability company in 1915, with his eldest son Torolf as director. However, he died in 1920, and from then on the company went downhill. Neither the old Marius Hammer nor his youngest son Max, who took over as manager, were able to carry out the radical restructuring that was necessary. Shortly after Marius Hammer died in 1927, the company's properties and most of the machinery were sold, and the remains of the company went bankrupt in 1930. (REF: https://nbl.snl.no/Marius_Hammer)