My father was always busy creating designs which combined form and function in a fun and comprehensive way. Items made for a beautifully set table was one of the early tasks he threw himself at. Before the “Peberfugl” he had already designed a salt and pepper set in bog oak with inlaid tin, both made for fine-grained products that was most common in the 50s. Another attempt to make a salt-pepper-set was the “Pjerrot”: One arm contain salt, the other pepper, the head is a corkscrew, and the feet hides a bottle-opener. He even suggested a version where the corkscrew is substituted with a pepper grinder. Only very few Pjerrots was ever made
The my fathers drawings shows whats inside:
With the “Peberfugl” came the desire to find a salt keeper counterpart for coarse-grained kitchen salt, a thing that was becoming still more popular. The salt keeper was supposed to fit into the story of the bird, but an actual salt grinder was never an issue. A nearby object when you think of a bird is of course an egg! Tonn-P made several drafts of salt eggs which could draw a design line to the bird, both in selection of material and in form. Several of the “Peberfugl”-forms are inspired by an egg-form, and a wood similar to that used for the beak was an obvious choice. The egg was never produced, since it is until now a rather difficult process, and only drawings and a few hand-made feasibility studies exist today. Spring Copenhagen have overcome the difficulties and now, many years later, made a pretty salt-keeper-eggs suitable for “Peberfugl”. Here are the drawings and a couple of “egg-studies” shown together with one of the early “very-large-beak” handmade birds (my own):
In the mid 1960’s my father also designed a set of cutlery for the SAS airline company and their hotels. The set was never produced, but I still think it is very stylish with an aeroplane finn and other modern style elements. The set I have is a demo, made from tin and very soft:
