SOLD
ESTATE: Offered are two very fine serving pieces, a Cake/Pie Server and a pair of Antique openwork sterling silver tongs, which were inadvertantly separated from a very large set of TIFFANY English King 1885 sterling flatware, reputed to have belonged to famed industrial magnate and noted philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men in America.

Hallmarked TIFFANY & C0. - PAT. 1885 STERLING - M.
The M is from the Moore period and denotes manufacture by TIffany & Co., in America, between 1873 and 1891.

Both pieces bear the monogram AC.

The elderly dealer from whom we purchased a large collection of sterling several years ago, these among them, related the aforementioned history to us at the time of our purchase. We made the appropriate notation, tucked it in a separate cloth bag along with these two pieces, and placed the bag in the safe. We gradually sold off the bulk of the original purchase but for some reason never got around to pulling out the bag which contained these two serving pieces.

The original dealer has long since passed away and in the course of cleaning out the safe we recently came across the bag containing these two lovely serving pieces along with our note referencing their provenance. At this late date we have no way of confirming the original information, but some basic research appears to lend credence to the history as related to us.

Tiffany and Carnegie are names which have long been intertwined.

In 1837 Charles Lewis Tiffany and John F. Young opened Tiffany & Young. In 1841 Tiffany and Young took on another partner, J. L. Ellis, and the store became Tiffany, Young & Ellis. The store introduced sterling silver to the United States in 1852, a year after contracting John C. Moore to produce silverware exclusively for Tiffany's. In 1853 Tiffany bought out his partners, and the firm became Tiffany & Co. Tiffany's prestige reached a new level when it won the gold medal for jewelry and grand prize for silverware at the Paris Exposition in 1878.

Soon Tiffany was serving as a the personal jeweler, goldsmith, and silversmith to most of the crowned heads of Europe. Tiffany's real clientele, however, came from the burgeoning ranks of America's wealthy, the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Whitney's, the Rockefeller's, the Gould's, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, to name only a few.

Andrew Carnegie married for the first time in April of 1887, less than six months after the death of his beloved mother. It was a small, private wedding. Margaret Carnegie had long been accustomed to her son's complete attention and had done her best to undermine her son's relationship with his fiance. Carnegie and his mother shared a suite at New York's Windsor Hotel, and she often accompanied him, even to business meetings. Some have hinted that she exacted a promise from Carnegie that he remain a bachelor during her lifetime.

Carnegie was 52 when he finally married. His bride, Louise Whitfield, was twenty two years his junior. (In addition to her sterliing, Carnegie's fiance Louise also ordered her wedding announcements from Tiffany). Carnegie resided on New York's Millionaires' Row for over three decades, first in a brownstone adjoining the Vanderbilt chateau at 51st street, then in his four-story, sixty-four room mansion at 91st. (That mansion is now the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum).

Louis Comfort Tiffany was the son of Charles Louis Tiffany. Although known primarily as a glass artist, Louis Comfort Tiffany was also involved in interior design, furniture, rugs, ceramics, mosaics, jewelry, bronzes, desk sets, mirrors and more. He decorated the White House, as well as the homes of Mark Twain, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie and others.

These two TIFFANY English King 1885 sterling silver serving pieces, in addition to being quite beautiful, are also imbued with a rather fascinating bit of American history.