CultureAmerican
Date1925
PlaceNew York, United States
MediumSterling silver
DimensionsOverall: 8 5/8 × 14 3/8 × 10 1/4 in. (21.8 × 36.6 × 26 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by "One Great Night in November, 1987"
Object number87.267.A,.B
Not on view
Explore Further
DescriptionThis high-style, Art Deco cigar humidor is an outstanding example of Tiffany & Co.’s presentation silver and one of Tiffany’s last masterpieces in the genre. It was commissioned in 1925 by the business associates of Carl M. Loeb, president of the American Metal Company, Ltd., in honor of his 50th birthday. Tiffany’s craftsmen were particularly adept at translating personal, historical, industrial, architectural, or geographic imagery onto monumental silver objects through specialized techniques. The humidor features engravings of American Metal Company subsidiaries, workers at two of the company’s mines, and two figures on the lid: a miner chiseling ore from a rocky outcropping, and a steelworker pouring smoking, molten ore into a vessel. Images such as these glorified labor and suggested that workers were efficient, productive partners with industry. Within a few years of this humidor’s creation, the United States was plunged into the Great Depression, which severely curtailed Tiffany’s commissions for major works of presentation silver. Tiffany & Co. remained one of America’s leading silver firms over subsequent decades, but its designs became increasingly conservative, never quite matching the innovation of the late-19th to early-20th-century period.
Provenance
Research Ongoing
Exhibition HistoryLoaned to "A Century of Splendor: Silver in America, 1840-1940," at the Dallas Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 1994-Jan. 29, 1995, & travelling through Aug. 13, 1995 (LN:94.15).
Exhibited in "American Modern: 1920's and 30's Design" at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, March 15 to July 20, 2003.
"American Made: 250 Years of American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 7 July 2012 - 2 January 2013.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please
contact us.
