The founding fathers of Tiffany & Co were Charles Lewis Tiffany and John P. Young, who proved to be talented entrepreneurs. At first, the partners traded in English silver, European crystal and porcelain, art objects from Japan and China, and then the company began to produce table silver and jewelry of its own production.
The company’s first designers were renowned silversmith John C. Moore, who joined Tiffany in 1851, and his son Edward Moore. George Paulding Farnham (1859-1927) was one of Edward Moore’s most talented students. In November 1885, Farnham completed his apprenticeship and was appointed Moore’s chief assistant.
At the time, Tiffany & Co was preparing for the upcoming 1889 International Exhibition in Paris. In two years of preparation, Farnham developed a collection of 200 designs. The show eventually featured a collection that included 24 orchid-shaped brooches, realistic hair ornaments and corsages embellished with matte enamel to mimic the texture of a real flower, and gemstones. The enameled orchids were displayed at the Tiffany showroom in New York before they were shipped to Paris. On March 17, 1889, the New York Sun reported that the jewels attracted more attention “than any flower show, orchid show, or any other natural beauty ever held in this city.”
From the moment when William John Swenson sent the first orchid to England in 1818, and by the end of the 19th century, “orchidelirium” or “orchid fever”, like the tulip fever of the 16th century, spread from Europe to America. Collecting orchids became an expensive pastime, and wealthy people valued in them not only rarity and beauty, it was a status symbol. Orchid hunters have traveled the world collecting the rarest and finest specimens. The popularity of collecting orchids was facilitated by the paintings of the American artist Martin Johnson Heade who captivated the public in the second half of the 19th century, who went to Brazil to capture these exotic flowers. Farnham created very naturalistic reproductions of orchids from various countries, which served as models for decorations.
Tiffany’s booth at the show was praised by both the public and the press, and Farnham’s name has become synonymous with originality and excellence. As a result, Tiffany & Co received a gold medal for the jewelry exhibited, while Farnham was individually awarded a silver medal. Many of the orchids have been purchased by famous American clients of Tiffany & Co including John Pierpont Morgan, Jay Gould, Henry Walters. With this success, Paulding Farnham was appointed the firm’s chief jewelery designer in 1891.
Tiffany & Co ordered real specimens of orchids from places like Mexico, India, Guatemala and the Philippines. Tiffany’s designers had access to the latest reference books and sketched directly from live specimens in the studio. Technological innovations such as electroplating were used to achieve botanical believability in jewelry. From each variety of flower, galvanoplastic copies were made of copper, on which then gold blanks were cast for further processing and enamelling. Here is what the Paris Gazette of 1889 wrote about Tiffany orchids: “They are so faithfully reproduced that one can almost doubt that they are enamel, they imitate real flowers so well.”
Jewelry orchids became so popular that in 1890 Tiffany expanded its variety of models to 41 designs. The famous Paris Exhibition of 1900 was another of many victories for Tiffany & Co. Created by Farnham for the exhibition, an iris of gold and platinum with 120 sapphires received the highest award and was bought during the exhibition by the American collector Henry Walters for $ 6,906, a huge sum for those times.
The gemstones for the flower were chosen by George Frederick Kunz (1856–1912), a renowned geologist and gemologist who worked for Tiffany. Each type of gemstone is set in a special alloy setting that enhances the brilliance of the stone. Montana sapphires are set in blued steel, diamonds are set in platinum, topazes are set in gold. Demantoids, or green garnets, are encased in a standard alloy of gold, silver, and copper. The rod is cast from lemon gold – an alloy of gold with the addition of silver.
Jay Gould, an American railroad baron, not only amassed one of the finest private collections of orchids that cost a fortune, but he also purchased several Tiffany orchids—not for his wife, but to display in his closet for his own pleasure.
