Flower container (Vase)

Description

Tiffany’s lead designer and creative force for metalwork during the 1870s, Edward C. Moore, sought inspiration from global arts including those newly available to audiences of international expositions and fairs. Arts of the Islamic world helped inform the abstracted chased and engraved surfaces on these two delicate bud vases. They are an early expression of what became called Tiffany’s “Persian” style, clearly a synthesis of Moore’s creativity that appealed Mary Pauline Foster. She also acquired a related hot beverage service in 1874 before her marriage to Henry Algernon du Pont. Her initials are engraved in a surprisingly rococo, foliated script beneath the geometric bands of ornament and pointed lotus petals at the opening.