Tiffany's tiger hunt loving cup

A monumental loving cup made by Tiffany and Company in 1897--a masterpiece of silver embellished with a scene of buffalo hunting--was the subject of an article in the January 2006 issue of this magazine. (1) The present article will explore the equally spectacular tiger hunt loving cup, which is in Tiffany's East Indian style (Fig. 1). Both cups are in the Cincinnati Art Museum, where they awe visitors while demonstrating the significant role and range of exotic influences in nineteenth-century decorative arts.

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A well-documented, one-of-a-kind piece created for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (see Fig. 2), the tiger hunt cup shares similarities in form, function, materials, and theme with the buffalo hunt cup. Yet, their contrasting design styles underscore Tiffany and Company's ability to create ingeniously conceived, masterfully crafted silver in a variety of fashions for the entertainment and consumption of its late nineteenth-century clientele.

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The interpretation of the art of Near Eastern cultures by Westerners, known as orientalism, became increasingly fashionable during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Based primarily on the arts of Islamic countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, orientalism also included the traditions of Hindu India. Recognizing the wide and exotic appeal of orientalism, Tiffany quickly became a leading producer of goods in this style. Wares exhibiting East Indian inspired designs began to appear with increasing regularity in the early 1870s. The popularity of the style peaked in 1889 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, but it remained fashionable until the advent of World War I. Aptly described by Charles Venable in Silver in America: A Century of Splendor, the East Indian style as applied to American silver features much denser patterning as compared to designs from the Near East, and often incorporates such decorative motifs as textiles and elephants. (2)

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Edward C. Moore (1827-1891), the director of Tiffany's silver department, is credited with expanding Tiffany's orientalist wares to include the East Indian style. (3) A nineteenth-century observer described Moore as "A man of taste," who</p> <pre> had traveled much; he had seen and had seen it intelligently. He had brought back from his travels most complete collections of dyes, photographs, authentic specimens of the Arts of Persia, India, China and Japan. He had appropriated their ideas, their methods of decoration, and from all this he drew a new expression. (4) </pre> <p>In addition to the art objects collected by Moore, Tiffany and Company's design library housed numerous books on Indian art, including Lockwood De Forest's Indian Domestic Architecture (Boston, 1885), Henry Cole's Catalogue of the Objects of Indian Art Exhibited in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1874), George Birdwood's The Industrial Arts of India (London, 1880), and illustrated works on subjects ranging from Indian enamels made in Jaipur to the antiquities of Orissa. (5)

One side of the tiger hunt cup is expertly worked with repousse, chased, and engraved decoration depicting several Western men atop two caparisoned elephants and natives in the underbrush below, all struggling with a rearing tiger; a second tiger lurks in the foreground. Four sculptural feet support the mighty cup, which was designed to hold twenty-nine pints of liquid, and two great ivory tusks form the handles, extending from a base ornamented with cacti, palm fronds, and oriental rugs. The interior is gilt.

The cup is stamped with Tiffany's standard marks on the bottom (see Fig. 1a), including the pattern number (11164) and order number (3164), but it also bears a mark that incorporates Tiffany's name and a globe, indicating that it was made for the firm's display at the World's Columbian Exposition. Tiffany sent only its most impressive wares to world's fairs, and despite an economic recession, the firm showcased a profusion of exotic-inspired objects in Chicago, earning the fair's grand prize in silverware. (6) John T. Curran (1859-1933), who became the head of Tiffany's silver department in 1891 following Moore's death, (7) was responsible for the design of the wares sent to the exposition, (8) which included creations inspired by American, Japanese, Peruvian, and Scandinavian art. Among these were silver tankards, loving cups, vases, and thermometers incorporating elephant tusks and East Indian motifs.

According to records in Tiffany's archives, the tiger hunt cup went into production on February 4, 1893, and was completed five and a half weeks later, on March 15, (9) just before the exposition's opening on May 1. No preparatory sketches for the hunt scene have been found, but a drawing that includes specifications for the overall form and its cast elements survives (Fig. 3). The cup is not recorded in the firm's log of sold orders, which tracked commissions, and a single order number is listed in the firm's pattern-book ledger, indicating that the cup was not commissioned and that it was the only one of this design ever produced. (10) The cup's retail price is unknown. Fabrication costs totaled $208, and $1,979 was spent in achieving the detailed chased decoration.