MARK OF TIFFANY & CO., NEW YORK, 1878, WITH FRENCH IMPORT MARKS

Tiffany's exhibit of Japanesque-style silver won worldwide acclaim and the grand prix for silverware at the Paris Exposition of 1878. The genius of the designer Moore lay in the combination of colorful metallic alloys with organic forms and ornament derived from nature. A woodcut illustration in Emile Bergerat, Les chefs-d'oeuvre d'art à l'Exposition Universelle , Paris, 1878, vol. I, p. 121 depicts the same model of teapot as that of the present lot, indicating that a teapot made to this design was exhibited at the fair. Bergerat wrote in her article "The work of encrustation, of niello and of alloying tones are equally worthy of attracting the attention of connoisseurs. They are executed with an infinite taste and which one must congratulate twice an American manufacturer."

The hammering and mounting designs for the teapot #5046 are numbered 299, each piece of the current set is stamped 299. The Tiffany pattern books show this group listed as "Tête-à-Tête Set Saki form".

A teapot, of the same form to the teapot of the present lot was sold Christie's, New York, 10 December 1998, lot 310 ($28,000).