inevitable contact with Edward C. Moore, Tiffany & Co.’s head of design and a renowned silversmith – and an avid collector of art from Greece and Rome, Persia, China, Japan, and India. Tiffany had frequent exposure not only to Moore’s beautiful collection of glass, ceramic, metal, and lacquer objects d’art, but also had access to his astonishing personal library of books on natural history, architecture, and artistic technical methods – as well as the industrial design library Moore had established in the applied arts school he set up in Tiffany & Co.’s silversmithing workshop, just a short walk from the store on Union Square.

Photo courtesy of http://thepeacockroom.blogspot.com/

Moore’s Japanese-style silver won top awards for Tiffany & Co. in the 1878 Exposition universelle in Paris, with designs featuring the flora, birds, and dragonflies that would come to exemplify Art Nouveau in America – and ultimately appear throughout Tiffany’s mosaics, windows, and vases. Through his contact with New York’s Society of Decorative Art and its founder, Candace Wheeler – a major proponent

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