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Pitcher

Tiffany & Co.

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 199


Tiffany’s award-winning display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition attracted numerous accolades, particularly for its "chromatic" metalwork in copper and silver or copper, silver, and niello. Frank Hill Smith, a Boston artist and interior decorator, purchased this pitcher at the fair for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with funds and encouragement from Gideon F. T. Reed, a major Tiffany shareholder and manager of its Paris store. The pitcher became the first piece of American silver acquired by that museum and the first example of Tiffany silver to enter any museum collection. Its striking conventionalized natural motifs and contrasting hues embody Moore’s fascination with polychrome mixed metalwork from the Islamic world and Asia.

Pitcher, Tiffany & Co. (1837–present), Silver and copper, American

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