MARK OF TIFFANY & CO., NEW YORK, CIRCA 1886, THE DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES GROSJEAN

The Hopkins-Searles service was commissioned by Mary Frances Hopkins, widow of California railroad king Mark Hopkins, one of the "Big Four" of the Central Pacific. During her lifetime, Mrs Hopkins was one of the richest women in the United States, inheriting $21 million upon her husband's death in 1878. The Hopkins estate, now lost to fire, had been decorated by the Herter Brothers. Mrs. Hopkins remarried a Herter Brothers decorator, Edward Searles, who was twenty years her junior. Shortly thereafter, in 1891, she died leaving Mr. Searles a $30 million fortune, to the exclusion of other heirs. The former decorator never remarried, and on his death in 1920 left $40 million divided between his young male secretary and the children of his cousin.

Charles Grosjean designed the Hopkins-Searles service, beginning in 1884. Wine coolers from the service were entered in the Tiffany books in 1886. The Centerpiece and Plateau from this service were sold Sotheby's, New York, 18 & 19 January 2008, lot 43. For further discussion of the Hopkins-Searles service see C. Carpenter, Tiffany Silver, 1997, pp. 84-87.