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Pitcher

Pitcher

Manufacturer: Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Date: about 1878
Dimensions:
10 1/16 × 7 7/8 × 5 11/16 in. (25.6 × 20 × 14.5 cm)
Medium: Silver
Classification: Metalwork
Credit Line: Decorative Arts Purchased Fund and Museum Art Fund
Object number: 1985.32
Label Text:Following US Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s 1852–54 Expedition to Japan, fascination with Japanese culture increased in America and Europe. In this pitcher, Charles Lewis Tiffany & Company included Asian-inspired design elements—the decoration of butterflies and field grasses, the hammered surface, and the band of pattern at the base—to appeal to his clients’ taste for things Japanese.

The Tiffany pitcher and the other luxury objects in this case attest to the increasingly affluent lifestyle of some Americans during the late 1800s and early 1900s—the period dubbed “The Gilded Age” by Mark Twain.



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