A FINE COPPER AND SILVER VIKING STYLE PUNCH BOWL SET WITH STONES

Details
A FINE COPPER AND SILVER VIKING STYLE PUNCH BOWL SET WITH STONES
MAKER'S MARK OF TIFFANY & CO., NEW YORK, FINISHED NOVEMBER 20, 1902, DESIGNED BY PAULDING FARNHAM

Of compressed vase form, on domed circular foot, with two angular open handles, the shoulder handles and foot applied with silver strapwork in Viking designs, the shoulder and footrim set with cabochon black opals of dark color, the flaring rim with traces of gilding and set with silver bosses, foot now detached, some damage to the stones, marked under base--length over handles 21in.

Lot Essay

Tiffany's pattern books describe this bowl as "Punch Bowl Viking." The order number on this bowl is the only one listed in the pattern books, suggesting that this was the only example made. The cost of manufacturing the bowl was $1,300 with an additional $36 for 'cutting opals'.

Paulding Farnham designed a small group of stone-set objects in the Viking style between 1893 and 1902. A three-piece coffee service set with zircons and hessonites was made for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo of 1901 and is now in the Newark Museum. This coffee service and a related vase set with opals, now at the Brooklyn Museum, are illustrated in Janet Zapata, "The Rediscovery of Paulding Farnham, Tiffany's Designer Extraordinaire," Antiques, April 1991, plates X and Xii, pp. 726-727. A Viking vase set with garnets and tourmalines was sold in these Rooms, January 17, 1992, lot 13.

Some of the finest of Farnham's Viking designs were of base metals and not predominantly silver. The most famous of these is the iron and silver punch bowl made for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated in 19th Century America, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1970, illus. fig. 259.