When I purchased these beautiful Dansk 1960’s era casseroles in the Fluted Flamestone line, it came with bonus piece.
The bonus piece was a cast iron “bowl”.
The prior owner thought the bowl was a Dansk piece and part of the set.
It was not.
In fact, it wasn’t a Dansk item at all but it could have possibly been purchased with the casseroles in mind.
The bottom of this lovely cast iron piece had nice clear stamp — so it was easy enough to get preliminary information.
Within Etsy’s search box, I found a listing for the item from an Etsy seller in the United Kingdom:
I do my best to research the objects that I list on my store, so it was interesting to see this listing and the title.
The listing title included the words “Brutalist” and Space Age.
A quick search yielded this Wikipedia article about the term Brutalist — a term not yet familiar to me.
Brutalist architecture is a movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, descending from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century.
The term originates from the French word for “raw” in the term used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material béton brut (raw concrete).
British architectural critic Reyner Banham adapted the term into “brutalism” (originally “New Brutalism”) to identify the emerging style.
I have seen sculptures described as Brutalist — like this steel and brass piece from the Etsy Store Luola.
So I suppose the term can also be used to describe objects, like the Lonborg Denmark cast enamel item?
A search on EBay yielded this Lonborg listing and an answer to this item’s original use:
Ah… so it’s a piece that was part of a warming trivet pack to keep food warm. Clever, right?
Before I listed the item on my shop, another Etsy “Lonborg” search yielded this listing:
Wow — it seems like my item would be a great match for this buffet warmer (and Lauride Lonborg) listing .
I’ve added the link to my listing page in case someone needs both in their mid-century modern dining collection.
How awesome would it be to have this vintage set to keep food contained in oven to table casseroles nice and warm for a buffet style party…
Here is my listing (you can click on the image to see the item on my Etsy store):
I’m posting this information so that if someone runs into this particular object in the future, they will at least have this blog post to learn what it was used for / or sold as.
And too… I suppose it is to avoid misnaming items.
Let me know if you have seen or are familiar with this piece. Have you used one?
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Related: Another item listing with a link to an Etsy Seller – The Meaning of Handgemalt
