Tiffany & Company (manufacturer), Louis Comfort Tiffany (designer)
Founded 1837, American painter, designer, patron, 1848-1933
Presentation Vase with Cover
Around 1915
Sterling silver with Limoges porcelain enamel decoration
22 x 10 3/4 inches (55.88 x 27.305 centimeters)
Gift of Bethlehem Steel Co., 1985.
1985.025.000

Louis Comfort Tiffany designed the thirteen exhibition pieces displayed by Tiffany and Co. at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco in 1915. Such pieces were intended to increase business by showing off the artistry of the designer and the technical skill of the company's craftsmen. This vase reproduces, in enamel, two Tiffany paintings representing the Roman goddesses Flora and Ceres, and their retinues. The enamel was thinly applied, allowing the engraved sketch to show through. Tiffany's design for the piece was probably rendered into completed production drawings by Tiffany and Co.'s chief designer, Albert A. Southwick.

In 1922 executives from Bethlehem Steel presented the vase, with a new engraved inscription under the lid, to the company's founder and chairman, Charles Schwab as "a token of affection, love and esteem" on his sixtieth birthday.