A Tiffany silver and mixed metal vase that sold at Revere Auctions for $44,000 (£35,200).
Similar pieces mixing a broad range of different decorative vocabularies were exhibited by Tiffany at international exhibitions in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Moore was himself a great collector (he left his huge holdings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and he brought his deep knowledge of Islamic and Far Eastern design to bear on his work.
A detail of the foot of the Tiffany silver and mixed metal vase that sold at Revere Auctions for $44,000 (£35,200).
Dating from c.1885, this 11in (27cm) tall and 83oz trophy combines the inlaying and patination techniques he had learned from Japanese metalworking with a form and geometric decoration borrowed from Pueblo pottery. The three naturalistic buffalo head and hoof legs decoration are a very much an addition of the ‘Gilded Age’.
The inside of the Tiffany silver and mixed metal vase, $44,000 (£35,200) at Revere Auctions.
To the gold-wash interior is the inscription Catharine Lorillard Wolfe To Clarence Cecil Pell Nov. 15th 1885 that documents its commission.
Catharine Wolfe (1828-1887), the daughter of a New York merchant and one of the heirs to the Lorillard Tobacco fortune, inherited $12m (something close to $300m in today’s money) in 1872. She combined art collecting with philanthropy and made two major bequests to the Met.
Clarence Pell (1885-1964) of Newport, Rhode Island, who was evidently given this piece as a christening gift, was also a member of the Lorillard family that sold cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max.
The vase came for sale in St Paul, Minnesota, at Revere Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on November 14. With a clean bill of health (it had no dents, major scratches or signs of restoration) it was estimated at $5000-10,000 but found sufficient admirers to sell for $44,000 (£35,200).
