Georg Jensen A/S (originally Georg Jensens Sølvsmedie A/S) is a Danish designer company with focus on silverware. It was founded by silversmith Georg Jensen in 1904. History After finishing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1892, Georg Jensen tried his hand at clay sculptures, before moving to the applied arts. He began as a modeller at the Bing & Grøndahl porcelain factory and, in 1898 he had small pottery workshop. In 1901, he abandoned ceramics and resumed work as a silversmith and designer with the master, Mogens Ballin. This led Jensen to make a landmark decision, when in 1904, he risked what small capital he had and opened his own little silversmithy at 36 Bredgade in Copenhagen. In 1909, Jensen opened his first shop in Berlin, and the following year, he received a gold medal for the work he displayed at the International Exhibition in Brussels. In 1912, he opened a larger workshop and a larger retail shop in Copenhagen. The company's Berlin store entered a period of financial trouble with the beginning of World War I. The company did, however, enjoy international success, winning the grand Prix at the 1915 world's fair, with William Randolph Hearst reportedly buying the whole exhibition. By 1917, the business, also due to lack of silver during WWI, was suffering, and to rescue the business Georg Jensen asked help from his brother-in-law, Thorolf Møller, and one of his earliest important clients, Peder Anders Pedersen (1869-1937), who had made a fortune building the first power stations in Denmark. The two invested 440,000 crowns, topping it up two years later and taking the share capital of the company to 1.2 million crowns. P.A. Pedersen also took over the chairmanship, but the post-war years proved to be challenging, amid recession and bankruptcies, and as the business struggled, in 1924 Pedersen became the firm's managing director too. Georg Jensen would concentrate on the artistic side of the business, but probably felt his pride violated when control of the silversmith was thus lost. In 1925 Georg Jensen moved to Paris, when he opened a branch of the silversmith, but following year, he returned to Copenhagen and reconciled with P.A. Pedersen, continuing as its creative leader until his death in 1935. Together with Thorolf Møller, P.A. Pedersen wanted to expand further, and in 1924 had financed the opening of a branch in New York. This was to become