Centerpiece

This centerpiece represents Gorham Manufacturing Company at the height of its creative powers. The meticulously rendered, naturalistic folds of the elephant's skin, elaborate textiles and adornments, lively twist of the trunk, and piercing eyes attest to the creative and technical virtuosity of the designers and silversmiths working at Gorham in the 1880s. An evocative response to nineteenth-century Western audiences’ fascination with East and West Asia and India, it was part of a set that included three other extant pieces, a pair of 13-light candelabra with elephant supports and an elaborate fruit stand featuring four elephants carrying a dish draped in trompe-l’oeil fabric (currently on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts). These works are among the most ambitious and inventive examples of American silver in the East
Indian taste known by any Western silversmith.

The coats of arms engraved on the base were used by the Arnold family. The centerpiece and other parts of the set are thought to have belonged to Richard Arnold (1825–1886), owner of, Arnold, Constable & Co., one of the largest retail establishments in New York City with a grand, five-story building at Broadway and 19th Street, not far from Gorham’s wholesale and resale premises. The centerpiece likely would have been displayed in Arnold’s dining room bedecked with fruit or sweets. It offered an unequivocal statement about the taste and sophistication of its owner, associating him and the dining room it graced with the perceived luxuries of India.