Tiffany and Company

Dates

• Existence: 1837-

Biography

The firm Tiffany & Young was founded in New York on 21 September 1837 by Charles Louis Tiffany and his partner John B. Young (1802–52) as a small fancy goods and stationery store. Tiffany proved to be a gifted entrepreneur with an impeccable sense of style; he catered to newly rich clients unsure of their tastes by offering rare and exotic imported goods, and the business thrived. In 1841, with a third partner, John L. Ellis, the company added fine European silver, porcelain, crystal glassware, personal and desk-top accessories, and later jewelry, Swiss watches, and bronze statuary to its stock. As a champion of American craftsmanship and materials, Tiffany established his own jewelry-making workshop in 1848 and subsequently became one of the greatest merchant-jewelers in the USA; the firm produced such pieces of individually crafted jewelry as the ‘Chrysanthemum’ brooch.

In 1851 Tiffany brought the silver manufacturer John Chandler Moore into the firm, and under Moore’s direction the company rose to dominate the domestic silver market. By 1853 the firm was known as Tiffany & Co. In 1850 Tiffany opened a branch in Paris; at the Expositions Universelles of 1867 and 1878 in Paris the firm was awarded medals, the first to be given to an American silver-maker. Moore’s son, the silver designer Edward Chandler Moore (1827–91), also joined the company; in 1871 he created the celebrated ‘Audubon’ flatware, with its modeled and cast design of birds, which continued to be produced during the 1990s, and later such pieces as the opulent enameled silver and inlaid ‘Magnolia’ vase (c1892–3; New York, Met.).

By 1900 Tiffany & Co. included among its clients 23 royal families, including that of Queen Victoria, as well as celebrities, millionaires, and successive US presidents. A notable presentation item was the Adams Vase, designed by Paulding Farnham (1893–5; see United States of America, §IX, 1, (v)). Louis Comfort Tiffany inherited the business on the death of his father in 1902. Tiffany’s also produced some of the most important trophies in the USA, including the silver August Belmont Memorial Cup with festoons of oak leaves and models of Belmont racehorses (1926). In 1932 a store was opened in London, which flourished until World War II. From the mid-1950s the firm was revitalized under the president Walter Hoving (1897–1989) and the design director Van Day Truex. Such prominent European jewelry designers as Jean Schlumberger (1907–87) and Elsa Peretti (b 1940) joined the company, and new stores were opened in major cities in the USA, Europe (including another store in London), and Japan. In 1979 Truex was succeeded by the artist/designer John Loring (b 1939), who introduced work by such designers as Paloma Picasso (b 1949) and Frank Gehry, and revived some classic Tiffany designs.

Found in 7 Collections and/or Records: