A VICTORIAN SILVER THREE-PIECE TEA SET WITH MATCHING TRAY IN JAPANESQUE TIFFANY STYLE, MARTIN, HALL & CO., LONDON, 1879
Auction Closed
January 26, 08:38 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
A VICTORIAN SILVER THREE-PIECE TEA SET WITH MATCHING TRAY IN JAPANESQUE TIFFANY STYLE, MARTIN, HALL & CO., LONDON, 1879
comprising a Teapot, Creamer, Sugar Bowl, and two-handled Tray, all with spot-hammered surfaces and pierced handles, the tea set engraved with water plants and applied with silver fish, turtles, crabs, and a worm, the tray engraved with lily pads in a pond below branches of wisteria and gourds dotted with butterflies and a dragonfly, the base engraved "JY / JCY / From / A.M.A. / 6th July 1880"
marked throughout
65 oz
2021.5 g
height of teapot 5⅝ in.; length of tray over handles 15¼ in.
14.3 cm; 38.7 cm
This teapot is probably copied exactly from one in Tiffany's gold medal winning exhibit at the 1878 Paris Exposition. A Tiffany teapot of this model was found in London and recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017.1573). Unlike the Tiffany examples, the English set does not have any mixed-metal decoration, since the Goldsmiths' Hall would not allow the hallmarking of any piece which combined a base metal with silver.
A nearly identical creamer by Tiffany can be seen in Charles Carpenter, Tiffany Silver, 1997, p. 168, no. 266.