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Lot Essay
This highly original and unusually shaped centerpiece is noted in the Tiffany & Co. pattern book as Centre Piece Slipper form "Belmont". The ledger indicates that the piece was fashioned at a total manufacturing cost of $450 using 133 ounces of silver and was the first of only three produced. A second reference to the piece is found in the Hammering and Mounting Book #2 which lists the decoration as Centre Piece #5922 (Maple Leaves, (Belmont) Seeds and Bugs).
The references to Belmont in both the pattern book and the Hammering and Mounting Book are intriguing because they likely refer to August Belmont (1816-1890), a leading New York financier, who parlayed a connection with the Rothschild family into a fortune after he migrated to America. He was the inspiration for Edith Wharton's character "Beaumont" in The Age of Innocence and was an important patron of Tiffany & Co., commissioning the famous silver Comanche Cup for the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
As other entries on the same page of the pattern book refer to "Belmont style" and "Rothschilds", Tiffany & Co. may have been lending a certain cachet to their creations by associating them with prestigious silver collectors such as Belmont or Rothschild, rather than making reference to a specific patron.
The references to Belmont in both the pattern book and the Hammering and Mounting Book are intriguing because they likely refer to August Belmont (1816-1890), a leading New York financier, who parlayed a connection with the Rothschild family into a fortune after he migrated to America. He was the inspiration for Edith Wharton's character "Beaumont" in The Age of Innocence and was an important patron of Tiffany & Co., commissioning the famous silver Comanche Cup for the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
As other entries on the same page of the pattern book refer to "Belmont style" and "Rothschilds", Tiffany & Co. may have been lending a certain cachet to their creations by associating them with prestigious silver collectors such as Belmont or Rothschild, rather than making reference to a specific patron.