Vase

Moore and his team typically synthesized numerous sources when creating their inventive silver designs. This vase is a rare, perhaps singular, instance of an object that quotes literally from a single work of art. The Japanese iron brush holder to your left displays a virtually identical composition, depicting a spider approaching a dragonfly in its web. The tonal contrasts of the brush holder’s mixed-metal ornament are echoed here with the use of brass for the spider’s body, copper for its legs, silver for the dragonfly’s wings, copper for its body, and one of Tiffany’s versions of the shibuichi alloy for its eyes. The drawing for this vase reveals that the designers were embracing new techniques; the spider, dragonfly, and bamboo leaves were all produced by electrotyping.