A Monumental American Silver Bacchus Punch Bowl, Design Attributed to Eugene J. Soligny, Tiffany & Co., New York, Circa 1873

Sam Wagstaff Collection

Christie’s, New York, January 20, 1989

Sotheby’s, New York, January 18, 2008, lot 55

Property from the Richard & Jane Manoogian Foundation

John Loring, Magnificent Tiffany Silver, illus. p. 124

This is probably the punch bowl presented by the U.S. Government to Count Federico Sclopsis di Salerano (1798–1878), president of the commission investigating the "Alabama" claims.

During the Civil War, although Britain was officially neutral, its government had allowed five warships, including the Alabama, to be built for the Confederacy. After the war, the United States claimed direct and collateral damage. Three arbitrators from neutral countries ordered Britain to pay reparations of $15 million—though Charles Sumner had originally demanded $2 billion or the ceding of Canada to the United States.

After the favorable ruling, the government commissioned in thanks three presentation garnitures from Tiffany & Co. for the three arbitrators from Italy, Brazil, and Switzerland. Each consisted of this model of punch bowl, with a pair of wine coolers and a pair of candelabra. The candelabra figures, showing Ariadne, were signed by Eugene Soligny, to whom John Loring attributes the entire service.

One service was displayed at Tiffany's store in Union Square, when The Brooklyn Daily Argus reported "an artist will most conscientiously praise the exquisite workmanship. The terminal human heads, the beading, the scroll-work, the vine-leaves and graves of the vase [punch bowl]... are certainly perfectly wrought" (Loring p. 124). At least one of the services was displayed at the Vienna Exposition of 1873.

This punch bowl appears in the Tiffany factory archives as "Punch Bowl Head Improvisation." The making cost of the bowl itself was $320, while the cost of the finely modeled heads was $250; the total manufacturing cost was $800. A photo of a bowl of this model in the Tiffany archives is inscribed "371oz $1650," probably the retail price for the piece.

Today, the service given to the Brazilian representative Viscount d'Itajuba is in the Art Institute of Chicago, and that given to the Swiss representative Jacques Staempfli is in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva. The third garniture is untraced, but the remains of engraving on this piece are in the same place as on the other two presentation punch bowls.