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Tiffany's frog-shaped creamer and pufferfish sugar dish, at the Met
23 Plays1 year ago
In this week’s episode, Ben Miller speaks with Annamarie Sandecki, who describes herself as the “semi-retired former director” of the Tiffany Archives, and Medill Higgins Harvey, curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the light table are a curiously shaped creamer and equally curious sugar bowl, the first in the shape of a frog and the second shaped like a pufferfish. Both were made by Tiffany under the aegis of design director Edward C. Moore, whose personal collection of decorative arts objects from around the world served as an inspiration to Tiffany in the later 1800s, and is the subject of a current exhibition at the Met, Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany and Co.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Curious Objects'
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
Speaker
This is the podcast about art, decorative arts and antiques, the stories behind them, and what they can reveal to us about ourselves and the people who came before us.
00:00:25
Speaker
Here's a fun fact.
00:00:26
Speaker
You know that famous Hokusai print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa?
00:00:30
Speaker
It's that fantastic stylized illustration of a wave cresting over three Japanese boats.
00:00:37
Speaker
And it's credited as a huge inspiration for the French Impressionists, including artists like Monet, but even composers like Debussy.
00:00:47
Speaker
But what's less well-known is that Christopher Dresser, the great designer who we're going to hear a lot about later in this episode, designed a bowl that is an incredible ceramic homage to the Hokusai prints.
00:01:01
Speaker
The side of the bowl comes up and crests over the top, just like Hokusai's wave.
00:01:06
Speaker
So if you find yourself thinking about the connection between Japanese art and Impressionism and Art Nouveau,
00:01:13
Speaker
Do me a favor and don't just think about the paintings, remember the decorative arts too.
Japanese Influence on Western Art
00:01:19
Speaker
And today our curious object is a totally weird and absolutely fantastic example of this global exchange of ideas, and how that intersection of different traditions can lead to wildly creative results, and how Tiffany and company achieved exactly that in the late 19th century.
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm joined by two guests who are the perfect people to help us navigate all of that.
00:01:45
Speaker
And I can't tell you how excited I am about this conversation because right now at the Metropolitan Museum, there's a special exhibition called Collecting Inspiration, Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Company.
00:01:56
Speaker
It's all about this fascinating figure in late 19th century design, Edward Moore, who assembled an unrivaled collection of international decorative arts, especially Asian and Middle Eastern.
00:02:09
Speaker
The exhibition is open until October 20th, and it features pieces from Moore's collection alongside the Tiffany works they inspired, so cool.
00:02:19
Speaker
Now, as a silver guy, I've spent a lot of time with Moore's pieces, and several of the objects in this show actually came through our shop.
00:02:27
Speaker
But there are two people in the world who know this stuff better than anyone else, and lucky for me, and lucky for you, they're both here with
Introducing Guests and Their Favorite Tiffany Pieces
00:02:36
Speaker
me today.
00:02:36
Speaker
First is my friend, the curator of the Mets exhibition, author of the catalog, also called Collecting Inspiration, and curator of American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum, Medill Higgins Harvey.
00:02:49
Speaker
Madill, thanks for joining me.
00:02:50
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:02:52
Speaker
And second is the jewelry historian and curator and former head archivist of Tiffany & Company.
00:02:57
Speaker
She is at ArchivistsDelight on Instagram, Anna-Marie Sendeki.
00:03:01
Speaker
So nice to have you here.
00:03:03
Speaker
Oh, thank you for having me.
00:03:04
Speaker
And hello to Madill.
00:03:07
Speaker
Hello, Anna-Marie.
00:03:08
Speaker
Now, I want to start off with some rapid fire questions.
00:03:11
Speaker
So I hope you had your coffee this morning.
00:03:14
Speaker
Anna-Marie, what is the first piece of jewelry you remember falling in love with?
00:03:20
Speaker
Okay, this is a bad question to ask me because I really fell in love with a piece of silver first.
00:03:26
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:03:27
Speaker
Well, you can give us silver.
00:03:29
Speaker
I'll never stop that.
00:03:31
Speaker
Sorry.
00:03:32
Speaker
And I can tell you exactly what it was.
00:03:34
Speaker
It was a Wave Edge server with the clamshell end.
00:03:39
Speaker
It actually brought tears to my eyes.
00:03:42
Speaker
How sad is that?
00:03:45
Speaker
In this context, Anna Marie, that is very happy.
00:03:49
Speaker
What did you love about it?
00:03:50
Speaker
How old were you, by the way?
00:03:52
Speaker
Well, actually, it was on my first day at Tiffany.
00:03:55
Speaker
I saw that piece and I had never, ever, ever fallen in love with a piece of silver before.
00:04:00
Speaker
And it just made me cry.
00:04:02
Speaker
It made me, it reminded me of the beach.
00:04:05
Speaker
Wow.
00:04:05
Speaker
You know, sad for somebody who's going to spend the next 30 years of her life spending it primarily curating jewelry.
00:04:14
Speaker
Now, falling in love with silver is never sad.
00:04:17
Speaker
In fact, on that note, Medill, tell us why silver is the best material across all the decorative arts.
00:04:24
Speaker
Oh, gosh, you want to get me in trouble.
00:04:27
Speaker
I do.
00:04:27
Speaker
Out of the gate here, Ben.
00:04:29
Speaker
Well, silver has so much potential to tell so many different stories, the workmanship,
00:04:39
Speaker
anybody with two eyes can dig in and find something to make them weep like Anna Marie to love.
00:04:48
Speaker
The material is one that I think has been valued in many different times and as a result there's such creativity to be found.
00:05:04
Speaker
Okay, a giant tidal wave, maybe it's Pocusize wave, is about to crush the Met Museum.
00:05:10
Speaker
And you both are in the exhibition.
00:05:15
Speaker
Fortunately, you have time to escape, but you can only grab one object to take with you.
00:05:21
Speaker
What are you going to save?
00:05:23
Speaker
I'll give that to you first, Anna-Marie.
00:05:25
Speaker
Oh, does a pair, is that like one object?
00:05:29
Speaker
You can save a pair.
00:05:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:32
Speaker
All right, so then I want my puffer fish and my frog creamer.
00:05:36
Speaker
Everything is in the parish.
00:05:38
Speaker
Even the jewelry, and that's a lot for me to say.
00:05:41
Speaker
All right, so you're previewing today's curious objects.
00:05:44
Speaker
Medill, what are you going to save?
00:05:47
Speaker
Oh, you really, now you have done it.
00:05:52
Speaker
I think I would, this is like choosing your
Hypothetical Museum Rescue: What Would You Save?
00:05:55
Speaker
children.
00:05:55
Speaker
It's just excruciating.
00:05:58
Speaker
I would save the
00:06:02
Speaker
red chocolate pot.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yes, that beautiful patinated copper piece.
00:06:08
Speaker
I love that.
00:06:11
Speaker
It is a beauty.
00:06:12
Speaker
I'm tempted to say the huge candelabra.
00:06:15
Speaker
I don't think I could carry them.
00:06:17
Speaker
No, at six feet tall and 105 pounds each, that might be a challenge, even for you.
00:06:25
Speaker
I'm glad you're saving that chocolate pot, though, because it means I can pick something else.
00:06:30
Speaker
Okay, Anna Marie, what is one misconception that people have about Tiffany that you'd like to correct?
00:06:36
Speaker
Oh, that's a tough one.
00:06:38
Speaker
I think today people feel like it's
00:06:42
Speaker
too unapproachable for them.
00:06:45
Speaker
And I think it's always been a store that has welcomed and a brand that's welcomed everyone.
00:06:51
Speaker
So I think, you know, somewhere along the way, we got that stuffy moniker that we don't deserve.
00:06:57
Speaker
So.
00:06:58
Speaker
You know, Anne-Marie, that's so interesting, because in all of the work I've been doing, Tiffany saw itself as serving its community and serving as a museum and a place to
00:07:10
Speaker
to look and learn and be inspired from its outset.
00:07:15
Speaker
And I think that's the core value of the brand.
00:07:22
Speaker
Museum for all, education, Walter Hoving's taste, and we present things because we think people will like their design, not because we think they're going to sell.
00:07:37
Speaker
I think that's always been our true north.
00:07:43
Speaker
Okay, so you've both worked throughout your careers with absolute pinnacle world-class collections, but I want to know what for each of you is the most valuable object or work of art that you've actually physically touched?
00:07:58
Speaker
Well, you know, it's like my least favorite object, but it's the Tiffany diamond.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yes, of course.
00:08:06
Speaker
are my least favorite.
00:08:09
Speaker
And Anna Marie, what's the latest insurance appraisal for the Tiffany Diamond?
00:08:14
Speaker
No idea, in all honesty.
00:08:17
Speaker
But I can tell you it is the most valuable piece in the collection.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:22
Speaker
Bar none.
00:08:24
Speaker
What about you, Medell?
00:08:25
Speaker
Well, Ben, value.
00:08:27
Speaker
Is it what it's worth on the marketplace?
00:08:30
Speaker
I suppose my most recent acquisition of the pair of
00:08:35
Speaker
almost six foot high candelabra would come in as the most pricey.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, hard to argue with that.
00:08:48
Speaker
And what was the last object or artwork you saw that gave you shivers that made the hair on your neck stand up?
00:08:59
Speaker
Man, that's a tough one, Medill.
00:09:02
Speaker
You know, I think a lot about what
00:09:05
Speaker
I got away.
00:09:06
Speaker
I think a lot about what I enjoyed buying.
00:09:14
Speaker
And I never realized how much I would miss the adrenaline rush of being in the auction room and winning.
00:09:24
Speaker
It's a really silly thing to say.
00:09:27
Speaker
Well, you can still feel that.
00:09:29
Speaker
It may not be the same, you know, scale of acquisitions, but you buy things for yourself, I know.
00:09:36
Speaker
I do, but not at the dollar value.
00:09:42
Speaker
No, although spending your own money does have a certain special feeling to it.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:47
Speaker
You know, woohoo, I
Exploring Tiffany's Whimsical Designs
00:09:48
Speaker
just spent $100.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:49
Speaker
Um, it's...
00:09:53
Speaker
I think the acquisition that I made that had the greatest impact in the last 10 years on the direction of the company is probably the script for breakfast at Tiffany, which again, not my fave, but certainly, certainly set a tone for where the brand wanted to go.
00:10:17
Speaker
And I'm not even sure that's an object.
00:10:19
Speaker
I mean, I know it is, but you know, not like, not like a regular, it's a manuscript.
00:10:24
Speaker
So.
00:10:25
Speaker
Sure.
00:10:26
Speaker
I know I'm guilty of lots and lots of shivers installing the show.
00:10:29
Speaker
I kept falling in love and being astounded by each and every object as it was going in.
00:10:38
Speaker
So I, I am perhaps not very discerning about the single thing, although I was recently in,
00:10:45
Speaker
Vienna and getting to see Cellini Salt Cellar again was was one of those hair stand up heart flutter moments.
00:10:56
Speaker
I've never seen that in person.
00:10:58
Speaker
Oh, it's it's extraordinary.
00:11:00
Speaker
Is it magical?
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:03
Speaker
It's not it's not big.
00:11:05
Speaker
It's just the same thing we were just talking about.
00:11:10
Speaker
the attention to every detail that makes you want to stand there in awe forever.
00:11:18
Speaker
God, I'm so envious.
00:11:23
Speaker
Okay, well, we will be right back with Medill Harvey and Anna Marie Sendeki.
00:11:28
Speaker
For this episode, I think you are really going to want to check out a picture of the curious object.
00:11:33
Speaker
Actually, it's two objects, as Anna Marie just alluded to.
00:11:36
Speaker
And they are so wacky and fun.
00:11:38
Speaker
Our descriptions really will not do them justice, but you can see pictures at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
00:11:45
Speaker
If you'd like to reach out to me directly, I'm at curiousobjectspodcast at gmail.com or on Instagram at objectiveinterest.com.
00:11:55
Speaker
If you're listening right now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast app, make sure you've subscribed to Curious Objects so you see new episodes as they come out.
00:12:06
Speaker
Both of those apps also let you give us a rating and a review, which helps new listeners find the show.
00:12:12
Speaker
So please keep those coming and thanks for listening.
00:12:19
Speaker
Now, today's curious object, or two objects rather, is a cream pot and a sugar bowl.
00:12:27
Speaker
And they're like no other you've ever seen.
00:12:30
Speaker
So just start us off, Madil, what do these pieces look like?
00:12:35
Speaker
Well, the creamer is a crouching frog with a big, wide open mouth that becomes the spout and a curved handle and animated eyes
00:12:49
Speaker
looking out at you, presumably as you're pouring your cream into your tea or coffee.
00:12:56
Speaker
And the sugar bowl is exactly as you just said, it is the shape of a puffer fish.
00:13:04
Speaker
And it has a wonderful texture.
00:13:07
Speaker
And the lid is the top portion of the puffer fish's body.
00:13:11
Speaker
So it is almost sort of spherical puffy fish.
00:13:18
Speaker
complete with fins, eyes, a mouth and a top knot.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, so these are crazy objects.
00:13:26
Speaker
I mean, they're very cartoonish, but also extremely realistic at the same time.
00:13:32
Speaker
They're sort of, they fit in the palm of your hand.
00:13:35
Speaker
You know, they're this very appealing size.
00:13:38
Speaker
They're wild things.
00:13:39
Speaker
And to understand them, I think we have to start with some context.
00:13:44
Speaker
You know, a lot of people that I've mentioned this exhibition to, and I have been talking about this nonstop, you'll be happy to know, Madill,
00:13:51
Speaker
Thank you.
00:13:51
Speaker
But a lot of people are surprised to learn that Tiffany & Company is such an old business, that they were very active in the mid-19th century and late 19th century.
00:14:02
Speaker
And Medill, when Edward Moore started working with Tiffany in the 1850s, what was the company up to around that time?
00:14:13
Speaker
So they were a fancy goods store, basically stationary and fancy goods.
00:14:18
Speaker
They sold
00:14:19
Speaker
Anna Marie, Silver and various other things that were made, they were a retailer make selling things made by various different makers and Marie may have more to add Anna Marie, I think the best way to describe them when they first started was teaching Americans about luxury so you know there were.
00:14:40
Speaker
people who were wealthy earth and they had anticipated when Tiffany first started.
00:14:46
Speaker
And so you couldn't necessarily travel to Paris or travel to Germany or travel to wherever to buy little luxuries for yourself.
00:14:57
Speaker
And Tiffany did a very good job of bringing those little luxuries to them and really teaching them how to enjoy money in a way that was not showy, but quietly wealthy.
00:15:11
Speaker
and made them very happy.
00:15:15
Speaker
And how did this guy, Edward Moore, fit into that context?
00:15:20
Speaker
Badil.
00:15:21
Speaker
All right.
00:15:23
Speaker
So as they were retailing various different silversmiths' work, Charles Tiffany realized that to have a competitive advantage, they wanted to lock in an exclusive with the silversmith they considered the best, and that was Edward Moore and his father.
00:15:41
Speaker
That's how it all began.
00:15:42
Speaker
Okay, no.
00:15:44
Speaker
Where is the rock star of New York City?
00:15:47
Speaker
Edward was the rising genius.
00:15:50
Speaker
And I think Tiffany knew that they really wanted that competitive edge that he was going to give them.
00:15:59
Speaker
Charles Tiffany was an enormously prescient.
00:16:03
Speaker
He was a smart business guy.
00:16:05
Speaker
He was the Bill Gates
00:16:09
Speaker
of silver in the city.
00:16:12
Speaker
You know, we don't use the word merchant prince very often.
00:16:15
Speaker
He was a merchant prince.
00:16:16
Speaker
And I think he understood that he needed this lateral, horizontal occupation of a certain area.
00:16:26
Speaker
And I think we also forget how pervasive silver was to Americans' lives.
00:16:32
Speaker
Medill talked about her love of the metal.
00:16:35
Speaker
Silver is meant to be used.
00:16:37
Speaker
And you were literally born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
00:16:41
Speaker
You were surrounded by silver.
00:16:43
Speaker
Everybody got silver all the time.
00:16:47
Speaker
And, you know, Charles Tiffany wanted in on that.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah, no, he knew it was the sort of key item in his offerings of merchandise.
00:16:58
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:00
Speaker
Exactly.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, so how did Tiffany start to distinguish themselves and stand out from other American silver retailers?
Tiffany's Luxury Evolution and International Influence
00:17:11
Speaker
Well, you've hired a rock star.
00:17:12
Speaker
What are you going to do?
00:17:13
Speaker
You're going to give him whatever he needs to succeed.
00:17:17
Speaker
Give him talented workmen.
00:17:18
Speaker
Give him the ability to travel to Europe, which Medill documents so beautifully in her essays.
00:17:25
Speaker
You had to travel to Europe to look at the paintings on the wall.
00:17:27
Speaker
You had to bring things back.
00:17:31
Speaker
And he did all that.
00:17:33
Speaker
And he was inspired by it and he was inspirational.
00:17:38
Speaker
I think.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, he had real vision, but he also drove his staff to challenge themselves and to work incredibly hard to innovate.
00:17:51
Speaker
I mean, you see that in all of the descriptions.
00:17:54
Speaker
Novelty and originality were the sort of North Star for what they were doing.
00:18:01
Speaker
And they dared to,
00:18:03
Speaker
think and do things nobody else had been doing.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:07
Speaker
And so the core of this exhibition really is this idea of Moore as a collector.
00:18:13
Speaker
And he was an obsessive collector of decorative arts from all over the world.
00:18:18
Speaker
I mean, we're talking about antiquities from Greece and Rome, Islamic metalwork, rugs, Venetian glass, and
00:18:27
Speaker
Chinese ceramics, I mean, of course, all kinds of Japanese works which become critical in the development of more style.
00:18:35
Speaker
I mean, Medill, was this just a collection for his own sort of personal amusement and entertainment, or did he have a larger ambition as he was putting these pieces together?
00:18:48
Speaker
You ask a great question.
00:18:49
Speaker
He definitely had larger ambition, and it was to inspire himself and his staff to
00:18:57
Speaker
think and work in new ways.
00:18:58
Speaker
And it's important to remember there weren't museums.
00:19:01
Speaker
So public viewing of art wasn't an option for somebody who is learning how to be a silversmith or a
00:19:09
Speaker
decorative painter or whatever it might be.
00:19:11
Speaker
And so he wanted to address that lack of access and felt like what he was collecting was to show that which was technically virtuosic, beautiful.
00:19:24
Speaker
I mean, he's collecting as a formalist saying anything that could inspire him or his staff, he's acquiring.
00:19:33
Speaker
So he bought things that were rare and incredibly important and really mundane.
00:19:38
Speaker
You know, I think it's really important to remember, and I would drive this point home with your audience.
00:19:46
Speaker
If you're a designer today, you spend a lot of time on Instagram, on TikTok, on Pinterest, creating mood boards, visual mood boards.
00:19:57
Speaker
Back then, that is not a possibility.
00:19:59
Speaker
So you had to actually acquire the object or you had to acquire the book
00:20:05
Speaker
And then you had to do something that I'm not sure how many designers know how to do this today.
00:20:09
Speaker
You'd have to sketch the darn thing to remember it.
00:20:12
Speaker
You know, if it wasn't in front of you forever, you'd just sketch it.
00:20:15
Speaker
You couldn't take a picture with your camera.
00:20:17
Speaker
And that's the beauty of what Moore is doing.
00:20:20
Speaker
So can we go back to the two objects for a second?
00:20:23
Speaker
Because I really want to talk a little bit about my feelings about them, because I think Medill did a great job of setting the table of what they look like.
00:20:32
Speaker
But for me,
00:20:34
Speaker
The puffer fish has always been very girlsy.
00:20:37
Speaker
It reminds me of a 13 year old girl making a face at her parents, you know, with the pursed lips and the whole thing.
00:20:46
Speaker
And the frog has always been very boysy, rolling his eyes up in the air, like, you know, what the heck?
00:20:52
Speaker
Why is this?
00:20:53
Speaker
Where's the dang dragonfly that I've been chasing?
00:20:56
Speaker
And
00:20:58
Speaker
What is so odd is, and Medill didn't mention this, it's part of a set.
00:21:02
Speaker
So you've got an octopus coffee pot that is lost.
00:21:06
Speaker
If anyone listening knows where it is, you know what my Instagram account name is.
00:21:12
Speaker
Please use it.
00:21:14
Speaker
Or send it to me.
00:21:17
Speaker
We'll fight over it.
00:21:19
Speaker
Right.
00:21:21
Speaker
I really do more attention to the house on this one.
00:21:23
Speaker
And then there's a skate tray, which was made later, which we do know where it is.
00:21:31
Speaker
And they sit together quite nicely as a family.
00:21:35
Speaker
But I don't know, Medill, do you disagree with my boy and girl characterization of the coffee or the sugar in the creamer?
00:21:43
Speaker
No, not at all.
00:21:44
Speaker
And and it is it's that
00:21:46
Speaker
the fact that they have this very human emotion, they speak to absolutely everyone who comes into the show because you recognize that sort of eye rolling and impatience or wanting to move it along and gobble up the insects flying by.
00:22:10
Speaker
I would say if there's an object or pair of curious objects that are most
00:22:16
Speaker
popular with our visitors, it's the frog and the puffer fish.
00:22:21
Speaker
So for me, it's, you know, for those of our listeners studying for their SATs, these two pieces define the word anthropomorphic for me, which, you know, I'm going to use this as the lever because Medill knows that I've been waiting to talk about it.
00:22:38
Speaker
As much as I love Edward Moore, it's Charles Osborne, which for me has really took that core style that Moore had
00:22:46
Speaker
and pushed it in that direction.
00:22:48
Speaker
Because I really do feel like these are Osborne designs that were inspired by Dresser's writings on the grotesque and also by the fact that Moore had all these marvelous objects in his collection.
00:23:04
Speaker
So I've always wanted to say to Medill, do you feel, do you disagree with my characterization that Moore sort of took the style and launched it, but it's,
00:23:16
Speaker
it's Osborne that really took it to the next level.
00:23:19
Speaker
And I want to, Mitchell, just before you jump in and give your, I'm sure, fabulous answer to that question, I want to help our listeners out with a little bit of context around these figures, because we've talked about Edward C. Moore, but of course, you know, the Tiffany Design Department was more than just one person, and Moore was actually quite a potent mentor.
00:23:43
Speaker
We mentioned Christopher Dresser,
00:23:46
Speaker
earlier on, and he ended up being involved in various ways with the company.
00:23:50
Speaker
Anna Marie has now mentioned Charles Osborne as well.
00:23:53
Speaker
Medill, could you just give us a little bit of a sort of lineage, a genealogy of designers, sort of stemming from more, Tiffany?
00:24:04
Speaker
Sure.
00:24:05
Speaker
So as you say, there were a number of designers.
00:24:08
Speaker
And what's interesting about Osborne, who I think Anna Marie's right was probably
00:24:13
Speaker
the most creative of the people working with and for Moore is he had been a silversmith working at another silversmithing firm and he resigns sort of.
00:24:27
Speaker
And in the letter, he talks about the fact that the only way he's going to get better at his work is to study with Moore.
00:24:35
Speaker
But he clearly was seen as a special and gifted silversmith because they gave him
00:24:42
Speaker
the freedom to not necessarily just work at Tiffany.
00:24:45
Speaker
So he's continuing to work for a firm called Whiting at the same time.
00:24:49
Speaker
So there are, there are a number of silversmiths who come fully trained or who learn as young boys.
00:24:56
Speaker
And it is all men and boys at this point who, who learn from more, but Osborne came
00:25:05
Speaker
with very special gifts and they had something I would describe almost as a partnership in terms of each of them pushing the other to learn and work.
00:25:17
Speaker
Now, so the frog and the puffer fish, I mean, they are like, they're very funny, right?
00:25:23
Speaker
They're extremely humorous pieces.
00:25:25
Speaker
They, I mean, anthropomorphic is a great term for them.
00:25:29
Speaker
They remind me actually of like Miyazaki animations.
00:25:35
Speaker
And I wonder if Miyazaki has seen them because I think they, you know, they could fit right into one of his films.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:41
Speaker
But, you know, they're part of this stylistic group that in the Tiffany records are described as grotesque.
00:25:49
Speaker
And I wonder if, Anna Marie, maybe you want to tell us a little more about this idea of grotesque design.
00:25:57
Speaker
What does that mean?
00:25:59
Speaker
So Dresser was, so he wrote a book in...
00:26:05
Speaker
1876, studies in design.
00:26:07
Speaker
And at the very end, there was a two page chapter called on the treatment of the grotesque, where he very clearly outlines what humor in Japanese art is and how to kind of build on that humor.
00:26:22
Speaker
And for him, it was all about taking the natural world and sort of
00:26:28
Speaker
making it whimsical.
00:26:29
Speaker
And I love that word whimsy to describe these designs because by and large, they are all they're all going to bring a smile to your face.
00:26:37
Speaker
There's nothing unhappy about them.
00:26:40
Speaker
You know, there's a pig picture where
00:26:43
Speaker
The dragonflies landed on the pig's snout.
00:26:46
Speaker
There's a penguin picture.
00:26:49
Speaker
We've seen bookmarks that are elephants with the long elephant trunk being the page holder.
00:26:56
Speaker
I mean, egg cups with chicken feet.
00:27:00
Speaker
If you see a piece of silver and it's stamped Tiffany and it's some animal that makes you smile, it's Osborne and it's grotesque.
00:27:10
Speaker
And I think it's probably some of the
00:27:13
Speaker
best silver that the company made on that era because it's so innovative and so interesting.
00:27:20
Speaker
And so, and here's a funny thing to say about silver that people consider, I hate this word, museum quality.
00:27:27
Speaker
It's so approachable.
00:27:29
Speaker
You don't have to have a PhD in art history to get it.
00:27:33
Speaker
You just like it because of what it is.
00:27:35
Speaker
But if you look at Moore's collection, particularly of Japanese art,
00:27:40
Speaker
he found the whimsy of the way they characterize the natural world and the anthropomorphism and the, all of that irresistible.
00:27:50
Speaker
And his collection is full of objects with that make you laugh where the there's, there's one, one work of ceramic where there's a parade making fun of feudal lords because they're all depicted as grasshoppers and those kinds of,
00:28:08
Speaker
of works say everything about how much he loved that Japanese whimsy about the way the natural world could comment on and engage us in the human world.
00:28:22
Speaker
And I love how in the exhibition, you've put that grasshopper pot right across from the puffer fish and the frog.
00:28:27
Speaker
So you really see that communication.
00:28:31
Speaker
I'm curious, speaking of grotesque, these natural motifs, they become really core to the identity of Tiffany's pieces, both the silver and the jewelry.
00:28:43
Speaker
And they leaned into the creepy crawlies and the decay and the rot and
00:28:48
Speaker
you know, all of these ideas that would become really crucial to the emergence of the Art Nouveau movement.
00:28:56
Speaker
And I wonder, you know, when you think of a great French jeweler like René Lalique, you know, using dragonflies and beetles and decayed leaves,
00:29:05
Speaker
Tiffany was doing all that 10, 15 years earlier, including in their jewelry.
00:29:10
Speaker
So I wonder how much credit should we give to Tiffany to sort of for pioneering that idea of, I don't know, grossing out the customer?
00:29:21
Speaker
Well, I want to circle back for a second to sort of Edward Moore and his brilliant introduction of Japanesque, because I think one of the key elements
00:29:34
Speaker
pieces of his legacy is the fact that Japanese jewelry or jewelry inspired by the art of Japan was some of the earliest fashion jewelry in the United States.
00:29:48
Speaker
And I think Tiffany's reputation was built on the fact that they were creating these beautiful gold bangles with cattails around it or with dragonflies around it or with parasol shaped brooches.
00:30:03
Speaker
What's interesting for me is that the idea of the grotesque in jewelry and the anthropomorphic grotesque really pauses and reignites itself sometime.
00:30:18
Speaker
And this is in Tiffany history, in the 1960s with Claflin, who is a jewelry designer who does lots of animal figures.
00:30:27
Speaker
The dragonflies and the creepy crawlies kind of keys into the Gilded Age and all of Europe's fascination with nature in general.
00:30:38
Speaker
But for me, a key moment in Tiffany history is when Moore starts to design fashion jewelry and New Yorkers are snapping it up.
00:30:51
Speaker
And that's not something that we talk about very much because in our mind at Tiffany jewelry is always got stones in it.
00:30:58
Speaker
But honest to gosh, you know that that gold jewelry was paying the rent and they're making bangles and brooches and anything that they can want to buy.
Balancing Jewelry and Decorative Arts at Tiffany
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, and so, I mean, over the decades, over the last century, Tiffany, they gradually de-emphasized the decorative arts in favor of jewelry.
00:31:24
Speaker
And now, of course, most people, including I think many of our listeners, will think of Tiffany primarily as a jewelry company.
00:31:33
Speaker
And Anna-Marie, I wonder if you could just give us a sort of Cliff Notes version of how that came about.
00:31:39
Speaker
You know, I would debate that comment.
00:31:41
Speaker
I think we were always known as the place you could come to for your wedding band and your wedding gifts, your wedding registry, your china and your crystal.
00:31:51
Speaker
I think Tiffany's longevity is directly correlated to their ability to evolve and to be relevant to American taste.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I am very, very, very adamant that we are an American luxury house.
00:32:11
Speaker
even though the brand is owned by French owners right now, Americans live quite differently, I think, than Europeans, than Asians, than South Americans.
00:32:20
Speaker
And I think the brand has always been very attuned to the way we live.
00:32:25
Speaker
Right now, we're living in a moment where, Ben, you and I have talked a little bit about this.
00:32:30
Speaker
I think I've talked a little bit about it to Medill.
00:32:32
Speaker
We see the next generation now entertaining at home a little bit more than they used to.
00:32:37
Speaker
And that desire for, oh, maybe I should have a serving bowl for the chips.
00:32:43
Speaker
Or, oh, he just brought me flowers.
00:32:46
Speaker
What am I going to put them in?
00:32:50
Speaker
A solo red solo cup?
00:32:51
Speaker
Oh, maybe I need a vase.
00:32:54
Speaker
I just had friends over for a movie last night and we ate olives out of a, you know, a Gorham olive dish.
00:33:00
Speaker
Good for you!
00:33:01
Speaker
And it's just so satisfying, you know?
00:33:04
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:33:05
Speaker
It's not Tiffany, sorry, but working on that.
00:33:08
Speaker
We all cut a birthday cake once a year.
00:33:10
Speaker
Why are we using a plain knife when we can have a sterling silver cake server?
00:33:14
Speaker
That's right.
00:33:16
Speaker
And I think the brand still satisfies that and is beginning to once again get into that moment in Americans' lives.
00:33:23
Speaker
So.
00:33:26
Speaker
And Medill, what happened to Moore's collection?
Legacy of Moore's Collection and Modern Inspiration
00:33:30
Speaker
I mean, how did that come to be at the Met and what's going to happen to it after the show?
00:33:35
Speaker
So it came to the Met immediately after his death.
00:33:41
Speaker
He had designated that it was to go to a museum and his family gave it to the Met in 1891.
00:33:46
Speaker
And in many cases, it's some of the earliest of that type of material to be at the Met.
00:33:51
Speaker
And the collection was
00:33:53
Speaker
includes things that are stars of various galleries and they will go back to those galleries and lots of material that lives in storage.
00:34:00
Speaker
So it is always on view, some of it, and some of it has had its brief moment in the sun and will remain available for study, but probably not out on view.
00:34:13
Speaker
So Medill, there was originally a more room at the Met, right?
00:34:17
Speaker
Or a more display?
00:34:18
Speaker
Exactly.
00:34:20
Speaker
In the early days, the Met really was sort of a collection of collections.
00:34:23
Speaker
So the Edward Moore collection was seen as integral to the Met's mission of educating, elevating the quality of American design, et cetera.
00:34:33
Speaker
And so it was shown together until things were put into storage during World War II.
00:34:38
Speaker
And it was at that point that we had various specialized departments had developed and we communicated with
00:34:47
Speaker
the descendants of Moore to say, can we then distribute it to the Asian department, to the Department of Islamic art, to Greek and Roman, et cetera.
00:34:56
Speaker
But until then it was all shown, all 2000 plus objects were shown together in a single gallery.
00:35:05
Speaker
What do we think that contemporary artists and designers could learn by studying Edward Moore's example?
00:35:14
Speaker
You know, the eye is a muscle.
00:35:16
Speaker
I think it's very easy when you're looking through the lens of your phone to not take a moment to look at the object before you snap that picture.
00:35:29
Speaker
And I think the beauty of the exhibition is you can interact with an object that you rarely see because it's in a private collection or in storage, as Medill said.
00:35:44
Speaker
I would hope that people are looking, which I think is a skill that people forget they need.
00:35:53
Speaker
It's the first thing I tell people that don't like museums or say, you know, I never go to museums.
00:35:59
Speaker
The eye is a muscle.
00:36:00
Speaker
Let's look together.
00:36:01
Speaker
Tell me what you see.
00:36:02
Speaker
What do you see when you see that puffer fish?
00:36:05
Speaker
Do you see that 13 year old girl making a face at her parents?
00:36:11
Speaker
Well, and I think it's been really interesting.
00:36:13
Speaker
Artists and designers are loving this exhibition because it does manifest the creative process and whether it's one object that speaks to them or groups of objects, but seeing played out in space the way in which all kinds of different objects inspire an idea.
00:36:34
Speaker
And it's not a one-to-one.
00:36:35
Speaker
You're not copying something.
00:36:36
Speaker
You're just taking a bunch of different ideas and they become fodder for
00:36:40
Speaker
for your own creativity.
00:36:42
Speaker
I think that is manifest to people who might find their way into the show without any interest in silver necessarily, but, but they see creativity kind of made, made explicit.
00:36:56
Speaker
And, and that I think is something that really does resonate with artists and designers today.
00:37:03
Speaker
So, you know, people forget, and I think it's kind of like,
00:37:08
Speaker
jargon in the museum curator world that when curators like Medill arrange an exhibition is a carefully thought out process.
00:37:19
Speaker
And I always say when I'm bringing someone to a special exhibition, the objects are here to talk to each other.
00:37:27
Speaker
Look, look, it's not just this piece is next to this piece because they fit together in the case.
00:37:33
Speaker
There is a reason that Medill put the puffer fish across from the,
00:37:39
Speaker
Let's look at that together.
00:37:40
Speaker
How are they talking to each other?
00:37:44
Speaker
Is there enough space for them to talk?
00:37:46
Speaker
Are they screaming at each other?
00:37:48
Speaker
How many times, Medill, if you've gone into an exhibition, you've gone, oh my God, this is so noisy.
00:37:53
Speaker
It's too much in this group.
00:37:56
Speaker
Medill really did a great job of giving the object space and the chance to have conversations.
00:38:04
Speaker
So when you're walking through this,
00:38:06
Speaker
Look at the conversations that are happening.
00:38:10
Speaker
These pieces haven't been together for a really long time.
00:38:13
Speaker
They're talking to each other and saying things they haven't said in a while.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:18
Speaker
Sorry.
00:38:19
Speaker
I just have to reinforce that because I think that's such a keen observation.
00:38:23
Speaker
And I've, I've not seen very many museum exhibitions that do such a sort of keen and, and carefully considered job of really seeing how these objects play with each other.
Curating Conversations Through Exhibitions
00:38:36
Speaker
And that makes it such a, I mean, even for somebody like me, who's, who's quite familiar with the material, um,
00:38:43
Speaker
um still it feels like a totally novel experience to walk through and see the the lines of communication in the physical space so i just yeah i have to say a huge congratulations and thank you madel for making that possible for us no thank you that that was my hope and you never know if it will happen and when we started installing you could hear them talking to each other and i do want to
00:39:08
Speaker
call out our exhibition designers because there are all kinds of scholarly reasons that you want things together, but this is fundamentally visual.
00:39:16
Speaker
And I gave them a lot of room.
00:39:18
Speaker
I said, anyone with two eyes can make decisions about what these objects are saying to each other.
00:39:26
Speaker
So it became very collaborative as we all shared our thoughts as to which works wanted to be next to what, and I ended up having the final
00:39:38
Speaker
say or veto, but it was a really rich collaborative undertaking.
00:39:44
Speaker
This is a great exhibition, I think, to bring kids to because there's so much for them to look at that will entertain them.
00:39:51
Speaker
And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited about it, because it's not a stat.
00:39:57
Speaker
I'm sorry, English silver doesn't rock my boat.
00:40:00
Speaker
Blasphemy.
00:40:02
Speaker
I know, I know.
00:40:05
Speaker
But this is a great
00:40:08
Speaker
all in the family, you know, let's go and let's go to the Met.
00:40:11
Speaker
Let's go see an exhibition.
00:40:12
Speaker
And then you're finished and we're going for ice cream.
00:40:15
Speaker
Like, it's great.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, connecting past generations and future generations.
00:40:23
Speaker
I love it.
00:40:23
Speaker
That frog wants ice cream too.
00:40:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, he is waiting for it.
00:40:29
Speaker
His sister's fighting with him.
00:40:34
Speaker
Okay, before this spirals completely out of control, I think that's a good note to end on.
00:40:39
Speaker
And I just want to say thank you to Medill Harvey and Anna-Marie Sendeki for joining me to talk about this wonderful exhibition, the rich material and this fascinating history.
00:40:51
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:40:53
Speaker
Thank you.
00:40:57
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support from Sarah Bellotta.
00:41:02
Speaker
Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
Conclusion and Credits
00:41:06
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:41:08
Speaker
And I'm Ben Miller.