Butter Dish

ca. 1850

These two silver dishes, made in New York a generation apart, were both designed to serve butter at the dining table in an upper-middle-class household. Although both have highly decorated surfaces, the Tiffany dish appears more modern to the contemporary eye. This is due to the narrative linear decoration and the simple, bold geometry of the silhouette, both inspired by the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s and 1880s, which looked to the arts of Japan.