I thought that some of you might enjoy seeing this original Pottier & Stymus business card that I recently acquired. The address dates it to be 1871 and afterwards. Note the reference to Tiffany & Co. in the lower right corner (click the image to expand it). I can't pinpoint the reasoning behind the presence of the Tiffany name on the P&S card other than to say that the Herter Brothers book states that these firms worked on commissions together.
As of the approximate time of this card's printing, P & S was an independent company employing 700 men and 50 women. Their new building was six stories tall and occupied half of a city block across the street from the present site of Grand Central Terminal. The book goes on to describe the first story's showrooms as:
"a museum containing over 400,000 articles, " including furniture "of every variety of pattern, and of the most elaborate workmanship." In a vast "Hall of Models," bronzes, fixtures, among other items, were exhibited, many of which were said to have been executed by the firm. Smaller "galleries" were "intended to show the effect of complete sets of furniture, and upon the desire of the purchaser, they are transformed, as if by enchantment, into an elegant drawing-room, a bijou of a boudoir, a stately dining-room, or a more modest library."Makes you wish you could go back in time...
The card's reverse:
The placement and size of the Tiffany & Co text indicates to me that T&Co printed the cards for P&S , rather than it being a reference to any collaborative efforts by the two firms... What collaborations are referred to in the Herter book, btw? I do recall something about Tiffany supplying clockworks to Herter and P&S, but am drawing a blank beyond that.
To make matters even more interesting, LCT's lesser-known cousin Joseph Burr Tiffany was also a decorator, dba from about 1888 until the early 1890s as both "J.B. Tiffany and Co" and "Joseph B. Tiffany & Co;" he is primarily remembered for his decoration of most of the first floor rooms at Wilderstein, in Rhinebeck, NY. You will see his name in the newspaper accounts of the day as being one of the buyers at the post-fire auction sale of Pottier and Stymus's warerooms (April 1888). After 1900, he was employed by Steinway for several years as head of their department supplying "decorated and ornamental pianos."
'Tis easy to see how a mention of either LCT or his cousin could be mistaken for one of the "blue box" company!