Curious Objects: Mixed Metals and the American Origins of Art Nouveau, with Art Slice

Editorial Staff Curious Objects

Silver, patinated copper, gold, and ivory chocolate pot designed by Charles Osborne (1847–1920), made by Tiffany and Company, New York, 1879. Metropolitan Museum of Art, museum purchase, Louis and Virginia Clemente Foundation Inc. and Emma and Jay A. Lewis gifts.

Last month the host of Curious Objects, Benjamin Miller, made a guest appearance on Art Slice, hosted by the podcasting power couple—and artists and art historians—Stephanie Dueñas and Russell Shoemaker, and now available here. The trio’s conversation focuses on a dazzling group of mixed-metal wares made by Tiffany and Company in the latter part of the nineteenth century, including such standouts as an 1879 chocolate pot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a coffee pot shown at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Of special interest is the former object’s patinated copper, produced by an alchemical technique that was a closely guarded trade secret during the most fertile period of the silver firm’s history.

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