This shape of this silver coupe, or bowl, is based on the golden ratio, a geometric formula for ideal proportions found in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and later European cultures. In 1933, its maker, French silversmith Jean Puiforcat, wrote “I continue to believe that the circle...is the ideal figure, and the curve, which relates to it, is more noble than the straight line.” Puiforcat’s application of mathematics to handmade silver was, in part, a competitive response to the mass quantities of machine-made, silverplated metalwork which entered the consumer market after World War I (1914–1918). Image on label: Diagram for a coupe with golden ratio, 1938. Published in Jean Puiforcat by Françoise de Bonneville. Paris: Editions du Regard, 1986