Water pitcher

Since 1854, when Admiral Matthew Perry opened Japan to trade with the West, Japanese art and design had captivated European and American consumers. It was not long before innovative designers such as Edward C. Moore of Tiffany & Co. began to create objects inspired by authentic Japanese works of art, as well as by published volumes on Japanese art acquired for the firm’s design library. Moore himself made a personal collection of Japanese art, which he later donated to the Metropolitan Museum. His designs for silver in the Japanese taste were exhibited to great acclaim at the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle, where Tiffany & Co. won the grand prix for their work in silver. A water pitcher of this same overall shape was among the works exhibited in that display.

This pitcher is one of several iterations of what became one of Tiffany & Co.’s most iconic Japoniste models. Whereas the pitcher exhibited at the Paris exposition was ornamented with applied gold and copper irises, carp, and dragonflies, the present example features swimming carp and insects applied asymmetrically onto the hammered body. Taking cues from Japanese woodblock prints, as well as from the hammered surfaces and multiple colored metals used in Japanese work, Moore devised an aesthetic that integrated Eastern and Western design in a novel manner. One of the most innovative aspects of these pitchers is the application of natural motifs in a scenic rather than a repetitive design scheme.