Lot Essay
This service was ordered by Mark Hopkins's widow shortly before her much-publicized marriage to the young decorator Edward T. Searles in 1887. The story of the marriage, subsequent spending spree, inheritance by Searles of the Hopkins fortune, and the lawsuit against Searles by the Hopkins family has been told by Margaret Green in "The Man Who Spent Mark Hopkins's Money," Yankee Magazine, vol. V, March 1956, pp.51-55 and Sister Martina Flinton, P.M., The Searles Saga, privately printed, Methuen, Massachusetts, 1976. Charles Carpenter, in Tiffany silver, has related the story as follows:
"The Searles service is not only fascinating from a design point of view, it also has an interesting history. It was involved in a life story more flamboyant and certainly more lurid than the Mackay story. Mary Frances Searles was Mrs. Mark Hopkins when as a woman in her fifties she married Edward T. Searles, a young decorator, in 1887. Her first husband was Mark Hopkins, one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, who is probably best remembered today for the hotel named for him in San Francisco with its spectacular barroom "The Top of the Mark." He died in 1878 leaving his widow, Mary Frances, a vast fortune. The newspapers called her "America's Richest Widow." Mrs. Hopkins first met Edward Searles when she was furnishing her mansion on Nob Hill in San Francisco. Searles, described as being swarthy and muscular "with exquisite manners and of a romantic and poetic temperament," was a decorator with the well-known New York firm of Herter & Company. He was twenty-eight at the time. Mrs. Hopkins and Edward Searles's mutual interest in houses and furnishings made them best friends. When she married Searles in 1887, it was over the strong objections of her adopted son, Timothy. Searles and Mrs. Hopkins were married in a private ceremony in Trinity Chapel in New York. During their six-month honeymoon in Europe they were presented to Queen Victoria of England and King Humbert of Italy.
"During the 1880s Mrs. Hopkins moved East and went on a monumental house-building and buying spree. She built a two-million dollar chateau, modeled after Chambord, in the Berkshire town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, acquired a house at 60 Fifth Avenue in New York, and places on Block Island and at Methuen, Massachusetts.
"Mrs. Searles died in 1891 at the age of sixty. Her will created a sensation. She cut out everyone--her adopted son Timothy, relatives, and disgruntled servants--and left her estimated sixty million dollars to Edward Searles. Timothy and the others sued. The widely publicized trial at Salem, Massachusetts made marvelous newspaper material. Searles testified that Mrs. Hopkins pursued him for three years before they were actually married and that it was not a love match. He stated that his current income was more than $500,000 per year (this was still before income taxes) but was not allowed by his attorneys to state his income before his marriage to Mrs. Hopkins. The trial came to an abrupt halt because of an out-of-court settlement of about ten million dollars. The San Francisco Call noted: 'Evidently Mr. Searles didn't want another day on the witness stand.'
"There is a curious discrepancy between the date of the dessert service and the date of the marriage of Mrs. Hopkins to Edward Searles. The dessert service, which is identified in Tiffany's records only with the name of Mark Hopkins, must have been ordered in 1885 since Charles T. Grosjean's application for a design patent for the service was filed on December 26th of that year. It was almost two years later when Searles and Mrs. Hopkins were married--November 8th, 1887--and she became Mary Frances Searles, the MFS of the dessert service" (Carpenter, op. cit., pp. 102-103).
Photo caption: Charles T. Grosjean's Patent photograph for the design of the Searles Service. Copyright © Tiffany and Company, 1992. Not to be published or reproduced without prior permission. No permission for commercial use will be granted except by written license agreement.
"The Searles service is not only fascinating from a design point of view, it also has an interesting history. It was involved in a life story more flamboyant and certainly more lurid than the Mackay story. Mary Frances Searles was Mrs. Mark Hopkins when as a woman in her fifties she married Edward T. Searles, a young decorator, in 1887. Her first husband was Mark Hopkins, one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, who is probably best remembered today for the hotel named for him in San Francisco with its spectacular barroom "The Top of the Mark." He died in 1878 leaving his widow, Mary Frances, a vast fortune. The newspapers called her "America's Richest Widow." Mrs. Hopkins first met Edward Searles when she was furnishing her mansion on Nob Hill in San Francisco. Searles, described as being swarthy and muscular "with exquisite manners and of a romantic and poetic temperament," was a decorator with the well-known New York firm of Herter & Company. He was twenty-eight at the time. Mrs. Hopkins and Edward Searles's mutual interest in houses and furnishings made them best friends. When she married Searles in 1887, it was over the strong objections of her adopted son, Timothy. Searles and Mrs. Hopkins were married in a private ceremony in Trinity Chapel in New York. During their six-month honeymoon in Europe they were presented to Queen Victoria of England and King Humbert of Italy.
"During the 1880s Mrs. Hopkins moved East and went on a monumental house-building and buying spree. She built a two-million dollar chateau, modeled after Chambord, in the Berkshire town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, acquired a house at 60 Fifth Avenue in New York, and places on Block Island and at Methuen, Massachusetts.
"Mrs. Searles died in 1891 at the age of sixty. Her will created a sensation. She cut out everyone--her adopted son Timothy, relatives, and disgruntled servants--and left her estimated sixty million dollars to Edward Searles. Timothy and the others sued. The widely publicized trial at Salem, Massachusetts made marvelous newspaper material. Searles testified that Mrs. Hopkins pursued him for three years before they were actually married and that it was not a love match. He stated that his current income was more than $500,000 per year (this was still before income taxes) but was not allowed by his attorneys to state his income before his marriage to Mrs. Hopkins. The trial came to an abrupt halt because of an out-of-court settlement of about ten million dollars. The San Francisco Call noted: 'Evidently Mr. Searles didn't want another day on the witness stand.'
"There is a curious discrepancy between the date of the dessert service and the date of the marriage of Mrs. Hopkins to Edward Searles. The dessert service, which is identified in Tiffany's records only with the name of Mark Hopkins, must have been ordered in 1885 since Charles T. Grosjean's application for a design patent for the service was filed on December 26th of that year. It was almost two years later when Searles and Mrs. Hopkins were married--November 8th, 1887--and she became Mary Frances Searles, the MFS of the dessert service" (Carpenter, op. cit., pp. 102-103).
Photo caption: Charles T. Grosjean's Patent photograph for the design of the Searles Service. Copyright © Tiffany and Company, 1992. Not to be published or reproduced without prior permission. No permission for commercial use will be granted except by written license agreement.