Antique Tiffany Sterling Silver Spoon – Japanese Audubon Pattern Pat. 1871, Edward C. Moore Japonisme, Crane and Blossoms, New York 19th

A long-tailed bird comes down open-winged across the face of this handle, neck bent, into a scatter of star flowers, chrysanthemum wheels and small cruciform blossoms, with reed stems crossing behind it on a ground punched matte so the relief lifts clear of it. Nothing is centred and nothing is repeated; the weight of the composition sits low and left and the space above the wing is simply left empty, which is a Japanese habit of design and was not an American one in 1871. Turn the spoon over and there is a second, entirely different subject — three fan-shaped tufts of pine on a branch, a feathered spray climbing the neck, a trefoil bud — chased more shallowly than the front, as the reverse always is, but chased. Between the two, the handle gathers into a bundle of reeds bound at the middle, and where the handle meets the back of the bowl a chrysanthemum opens over the heel, its petals radiating from a single raised bead with a curled bud beneath. The bowl itself is left plain. Everything asked of the die-cutter went into the handle, front and back, and the plain reserve on the reverse — where a monogram would ordinarily be cut — was never engraved.

Four marks run along the back of the handle in one line, all of them crisp and fully legible: a small Old English m, then TIFFANY & CO., then STERLING, then PAT. 1871. Two of them together date the spoon closely. Tiffany brought the design back in 1956 under the name Audubon and sells it still; the two are close to look at, but only the nineteenth-century pieces carry the patent stamp, and this one does. The m narrows it much further — it is the director's letter Tiffany struck on silver from its own works, in use in this form of mark until the middle of the eighteen-seventies, so a spoon carrying both the letter and an 1871 patent was made within four or five years of the pattern's release, while Edward C. Moore, who designed it, was still running the silver works himself. That is the earliest cohort of Japanese there is, and it puts the spoon at a century and a half old. The silver says the same thing a third way. The spoon is 6.25 inches (15.9 cm) long and weighs 33 grams, where a standard sterling teaspoon of that length runs 20 to 25. Sterling has a fixed density, so on a piece this size the difference is not finish or design but simply more metal, and the early work does not economise the way the later work does. Condition is honest and used: the bowl carries fine surface scratches throughout, plain in raking light, and the silver has darkened in the recesses. That patina is left as found — it is what makes chased relief readable, and hard polishing only rounds it off. The chasing is crisp and unworn on both faces, which is where the value sits, and there are no bends, splits, repairs or solder anywhere.

Edward C. Moore walked through the Japanese display at the Paris Exposition of 1867, became Tiffany's chief silver designer the year after, and spent the rest of his life — he died in post in 1891 — buying Japanese objects by the crate and taking apart how they were composed. Japanese was the patent he took out in 1871 and the first Japonisme flatware made in America. He had eight birds cut and many plants, combined at random, so that scarcely two pieces in a service repeat; the pattern is consequently one of the very few collected by the single piece rather than by the set, and collectors hunt the birds they are missing. Moore left over two thousand objects to the Metropolitan Museum at his death — the founding core of its decorative arts collection — and the museum gave him a full exhibition in 2024. Most surviving Japanese comes from the decades after him. This one was struck while he was still at the bench, unmonogrammed, with its chasing intact.

• Type: Sterling Silver Spoon
• Maker: Tiffany & Co., New York
• Designer: Edward C. Moore
• Pattern: "Japanese" (patented 1871; reissued 1956 as "Audubon") — wading bird, blossoms, pine spray on reverse
• Era: c. 1871–1900 (original production; Pat. 1871 stamp)
• Length: 6.25" / 15.9 cm (measured)
• Weight: 33 g (weighed) — around 40% heavier than a standard sterling teaspoon of this length
• Material: Sterling silver (.925)
• Markings: Tiffany & Co. · Sterling · Pat. 1871, stamped on handle reverse

Condition
Honest antique condition, used as intended for over a century. The bowl shows fine surface scratches throughout, visible in raking light, and the silver carries natural dark patina in the recesses — left as found, since patina is what makes relief read and aggressive polishing softens it. The handle relief is crisp and unworn, front and back, and all three stamps are clear and fully legible. No bends, splits, repairs, or solder. Please review all photos as part of the condition record.

Ships carefully packed and insured from Canada. Combined shipping available. Orders to the United States ship duty-paid — all import duties are prepaid, so US buyers pay no extra fees on delivery.
Questions welcome — happy to provide additional photos of the marks, the weight on the scale, or any area under direct light.

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