A rare silver animal-form wine jug - Tiffany & Co., New York, 1884-1891

Formed as a pig studying a dragonfly on his snout, with textured hair, the head with hinged cover, the curling tail extending to form a scroll handle set with ivory insulators, the base engraved with monogram MLS, marked under base, also marked 7851/2952 - 9¾ in. high; 27 oz. 10 dwt. gross weight - Estimate: $100,000-150,000

Literature: John Loring, Magnificent Tiffany Silver, 2001, illus. p. 133.

Note: This apparently unique pig-form jug relates most closely to the work of Edward C. Moore in its whimsical spirit, overall creativity of the design, and its decorative details. Several Moore-designed pieces show animals in comic situations, such as a frog with a stomach ache from eating mosquitoes, a fish chasing a bug around the rim of a sugar bowl, and turtles escaping from the water on the base of a jardinière to crawl around its neck (Christie's New York, October 10, 1987, lots 49 and 52, and John Loring, Magnificent Tiffany Silver, 2001, p. 54).
The overall form of this jug, a highly stylized rendering of a pig, with its puzzled expression and a tail which extends to form a handle, recalls Moore's characteristic playfulness. Moore seemed to particularly enjoy designing handles which related to the overall scheme of each piece; for example, his mimosa-decorated jug has a bean-pod shaped handle and his wisteria-themed absinthe flagon has a curling vine-form handle (see Loring, pp. 36 and 41). Perhaps the most literal evidence of Moore's authorship of this piece is the arching dragonfly finial, which appears on several of his documented objects in the Japanese taste (see a coffeepot and a flask, illustrated in Loring, p. 48).

Christie's. Important American Silver. 17 January 2008. 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York