World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago: An American silver Japanese style vase, Tiffany & Co., New York, 1893

the body chased with koi and aquatic plants below water lillies and lily pads, upswept reeded handles with lily pad terminals, the everted shaped rim chased as the edges of lily pads, the base formed as stylized plant roots

Samuel Pomeroy Colt (1852-1921), Bristol, RI;
By descent to present owner

The description of this vase corresponds to Tiffany's "Trout Vase" entered in this exposition described in Catalogue of Tiffany & Co.'s Exhibit, Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, p. 74. The vase was originally enameled. 

The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago was a fair celebrating the arrival of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World in 1492.  Held in Chicago in 1892, countries from around the world, as well as prominent companies in the United States, contributed displays, among them, Tiffany & Co. All the silver in their display was designed by John Curran. According to a booklet published by the firm in 1893, A Glimpse of the Tiffany Exhibit at the Columbian Exposition Chicago, from the August Number of Godey’s Magazine, “He was a noted exponent of the ‘Tiffany School’ having received his entire training in the factories and art department of Tiffany & Co.” He was the chief designer of Tiffany silver at their Prince Street works and is credited with designing the Magnolia Vase, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Samuel Pomeroy Colt was born to Christopher Colt (brother to arms maker Samuel Colt) and Theodora Goujand DeWolf Colt of Bristol, RI. At the age of twenty-four, he entered politics, serving in the Rhode Island House of Representatives and as the state's Attorney General. He later founded the Industrial Trust Company, which eventually became Fleet Bank and ultimately merged into Bank of America. He also formed the United States Rubber Company, later called Uniroyal, which became the largest rubber company in the nation. He married Elizabeth Bullock, also of Bristol, with whom he had three sons.