Silver Wares : Shining Examples of Hand-Engraved Craftmanship Coming to San Juan in Traveling Tiffany Exhibit
In 1889, Charles Tiffany and other New York merchants presented a signed scroll to President Benjamin Harrison marking the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington.
A century later, the scroll isn’t nearly as significant as the vessel it came in: an intricately decorated silver cylinder. Tiffany silversmiths were obviously proud of the piece they had created, for on the bottom of the cylinder they added the words:
“This cylinder was made and inscribed in less than a week’s time!”
The silversmiths can be forgiven for tooting their own horn. Today, the highly detailed floral pattern sculpted or “chased” on the cylinder is a premiere example of a virtually lost art.
Tiffany & Co. has included the cylinder in “A Celebrated Tradition: The Silver of Tiffany,” a traveling exhibit that will stop at the Decorative Arts Study Center in San Juan Capistrano from Dec. 1 to 24.
The show spans 150 years of silversmithing and features 30 pieces organized around five major themes--birth, marriage, sport, achievement and state.
“The exhibit talks about the celebratory nature of silver,” says Edward Wawrynek, vice president of product development for Tiffany & Co. in New York City and an authority on American decorative silver.
Proof that fine silversmithing still exists is Tiffany’s recently completed Tattersalls Tiffany Highflyer Stakes Cup, to be presented at horse races this summer in England.
“It’s unique in modern times, in that it’s so massive and required virtuoso silversmithing and chasing,” Wawrynek says.
The massive 40-pound bowl has two horses protruding from either side. From hoof to hoof, it measures three feet wide and stands two feet tall. The trophy took 10 men 2,000 hours to complete.
Another racing trophy, this one made in 1873, is equally impressive. The trophy features a sculpture of a running horse and a Comanche Indian, who has scarcely a toehold on the animal.
“It’s more sculpture than trophy,” Wawrynek says. “It has so much kinetic energy.”
Many pieces in the exhibit have some small historical significance.
One of the children’s table sets was given as a gift in 1881 to Ulysses S. Grant III from his “Grandpapa,” Ulysses S. Grant, then 18th President of the United States. Each piece in the set has a die-rolled scene of marching children playing musical instruments.
An 1878 Japanese-style tray might not be the grandest piece in the exhibit, but for Tiffany & Co. it is the most significant, Wawrynek says. The tray’s design, which forms a spider’s web using copper, gold and platinum, helped earn Tiffany the Grand Prix at the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle.
“At the time it was revolutionary to leave hammer marks in the piece and to mix some less noble metals,” he says.
Chasing is the art of sculpting the silver by pounding it out with hammers. Inside the Benjamin Harrison cylinder can be seen the impressions left where the silversmiths’ small punching tools pushed out the metal.
Chasers can achieve greater depth and detail than engravers, because they are not limited by the thickness of the metal. Where engravers cut away the metal, chasers displace and shape it to achieve more of a three-dimensional design.
“When you can count the petals on a flower, that’s pretty remarkable,” Wawrynek says.
Because it demands both skill and time, chasing has become an endangered art.
The public didn’t appreciate the extra work.
“People weren’t willing to pay higher prices for the additional hand labor,” he says. “Lack of demand determined scarcity of supply.”
Between 1870 and 1930 there were dozens of chasers in the United States. Today Wawrynek counts only four who have truly mastered the craft. One of them, Alan Jones, works as head chaser at the Tiffany Silver Workshop, creating a number of Tiffany’s presentation pieces including the Tattersalls trophy.
Silver engravers are another endangered group of artisans. Tiffany employs 12 of them.
Norman DiSalvo, director of engraving and crystal etching for Tiffany & Co., has etched gifts for U.S. presidents from Eisenhower to Bush. He has worked on pieces for royalty and the world’s social, political and financial leaders. He engraved a silver box with the Romanian seal that was presented to Nicolae Ceausescu by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969.
Hand-engraving is an art that goes back more than 100 years, DiSalvo says.
“It’s one of the oldest crafts with no change in the way we do it.”
During his 35 years with Tiffany, he has been called on to do finely etched drawings of buildings, horses, oil derricks and tall ships.
“I love doing picture work,” he says.
DiSalvo and the other engravers work out their designs from a sketch. The area where the design will be engraved is painted white so the design can be copied onto the actual piece.
Engravers use tools with different points and shapes to cut away the metal. When the design is finished it is checked over for mistakes. If a word is misspelled, the piece can be smoothed and recut. Occasionally, the engravers must start over with a new piece.
DiSalvo has the same pride in his work enjoyed by the silversmiths who created Benjamin Harrison’s cylinder.
“I’m as proud of the little key rings I engrave as I am for something for the President,” he says. “Whether it costs $9 or thousands, I give it the same detail.”
He doesn’t want anything inferior leaving his shop.
“Once it leaves, it’s history,” he says.
The Decorative Arts Study Center is at 31431 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. (714) 496-2132.
