John Chandler Moore wholesaled silver to Tiffany, Young and Ellis. In 1851, Moore and his son Edward entered into an arrangement whereby they would manufacture exclusively for the Tiffany firm. Seventeen years after the agreement, Tiffany purchased the Moore factory outright, making Edward Chandler Moore a principal stockholder and appointing him general manager with responsibility for overseeing the company’s production.

Small birds, such as those on this cream pitcher and sugar basket, were frequently used motifs in American decorative arts of the later nineteenth century. Often depicted with their nests and baby birds, they suggest nurture and domestic happiness.