Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co.

Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and the film adaptation) would have needed a different title if the jewellery firm had stuck to its roots. Tiffany & Co began as a stationery company in 1837; it also sold ‘fancy goods’ and, from the 1850s onwards, jewellery. In 1868, it hired the silversmith Edward C. Moore as its chief silver designer, a post he held until his death nearly a quarter of a century later. During that time he not only drove Tiffany’s silverware range to new creative heights, but also formed a significant collection of decorative arts from around the world. This collection is the subject of an exhibition at the Met, which features some 180 objects from among the 2,000 items Moore bequeathed to the museum, alongside 70 pieces of silverware created under his direction at Tiffany & Co. The show also demonstrates how, thanks to Moore, this very American jewellery company assimilated an array of global influences (9 June–20 October).

Find out more from the Met’s website.

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Bottle (17th–18th century), Italy. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Candlestick (1878), Tiffany & Co. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Plate with Vegetal Decoration in a Seven-pointed Star (c. 1655–80), Iran. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York