Tiffany Studios

Silver Finish: The Work of Ubaldo Vitali

My parents purchased this lot in 1985 and the preceding lot three years later. Both are superb examples and were proudly displayed, but they were also a constant source of minor annoyance to my father. Each piece has a notched, short rim, the notches indicating that a silver collar, attached to the object with plaster of Paris, and cap were supposed to have been added, probably by Tiffany & Company, at the time of manufacture. So, although beautiful in their own right, Jay was bothered that the objects were incomplete.

I suggested that the silversmith Ubaldo Vitali (b. 1944) be commissioned to create the missing components. He lived and worked in the neighboring town of Maplewood and I was familiar with his conservation skills as well as his ability to fashion beautiful silver objects of his own design. Since that time, his works have been acquired by the Newark Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Yale University Art Gallery. Perhaps even more impressively, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant in 2011.

The two pieces were brought to his workroom around 1990, along with illustrations of the type of silver mounts Tiffany & Company created for similar pieces. My father, however, gave Ubaldo the liberty to develop his own designs that would echo, but not imitate, those from 90 years earlier. It took Vitali almost 4 years to complete the commission, but the final results were certainly worth the wait.

- PD