Chocolate Pot
Tiffany & Co.
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This chocolate pot exemplifies the unprecedented innovation and creativity that characterized Tiffany & Co.'s work during the 1870s and 80s. Under the direction of Edward C. Moore (1827-1891), Tiffany's produced exquisitely wrought and highly original silver, which in turn attracted many of the finest craftsmen and designers to the firm. Indeed, Charles Osborne (1847-1920), who is credited with designing this chocolate pot, left his position as chief designer at one of Tiffany's competitors, the Whiting Manufacturing Company, in order to learn from and work with Moore at Tiffany's. The silver that resulted from this mentorship and collaboration is among the finest produced during the second half of the nineteenth century. The spiral motifs accenting the pot's body together with the masterfully chased leaves wrapping the spout are signatures of Osborne's work. The lifelike cast ornaments of crawfish and crabs further demonstrate technical virtuosity and inventive aesthetic sensibilities, as does the rich red color, the result of painstaking experimentation and innovative use of electrolytic technology to achieve new surface tones and effects. Moore and Osborne were inspired by Japanese objects; however, their work is in no way imitative. This striking chocolate pot makes clear why The Connoisseur celebrates Tiffany & Co. in an 1885 article entitled "Artistic Silverware" for having "raised the making of artistic silver to a height never reached to my knowledge by silversmiths in preceding ages."
The American Wing
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.