Goblet Designed by Tiffany & Co. to Honor Andrew Carnegie

May 19, 2021

Contributed by David A. Hanks, Driehaus Museum Consulting Curator


Goblet, designed 1907, Tiffany & Company. Cast gilt bronze, 19.5 x 11 cm (7 11/16 x 4 5/16 in.), Marks: On underside: stamped TIFFANY & CO; on side of base: stamped TIFFANY & CO, Inscription: Cast on side of base: THE ENGINEERS : CLUB : DECEMBER : 9th: 1907, Collection of the Richard H. Driehaus Museum.

This commemorative goblet in the form of a thistle was produced by Tiffany & Company on the occasion of a dinner hosted by the Engineers Club of New York on December 9, 1907. Over 300 guests attended the dinner in honor of Andrew Carnegie,1 who had donated funds for a new twelve-story clubhouse building in Manhattan at 32 West 40th Street.2 The goblet’s thistle form, the national emblem of Scotland, evoked Carnegie’s Scottish ancestry.

In 1848, when Carnegie was 13 years old, his family emigrated from Scotland to the United States to seek economic opportunities. Carnegie eventually became the wealthiest man in the world, his fortune created through his steel business.3 After selling his steel company in 1901, Carnegie became one of America’s greatest philanthropists, with a focus on education and the creation of public libraries, among other interests. The Engineers Club had been founded in 1888, and Carnegie’s donation to fund the organization’s new clubhouse reflected the rising importance of the profession in the United States. With its growing reliance on steel for such major projects as skyscrapers and bridges, engineering had a unique connection to Carnegie’s steel business.  

The dinner to honor Carnegie had a distinguished guest list, including the writer Mark Twain, the inventor Thomas A. Edison, and industrialists Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Clay Frick. One can imagine toasts being given using the Tiffany goblets. Twain gave an after-dinner speech in which he satirized Carnegie’s recent efforts to reform the English language and simplify the complexities of spelling. Both Twain and Carnegie were convinced that English could become a universal international language if it were easier to read and write. The unusually concise inscription at the base of the goblet may have been a reflection of Carnegie’s efforts to simplify the language.

The form of the goblet is traditional, going back to at least Greek and Roman times. The thistle is incorporated into the design of the Tiffany goblet, its flower forming the cup and its leaves curling around the tapering stem and base. The goblet’s hand wrought appearance is related to the arts and crafts movement of the early twentieth century, while its naturalism is reminiscent of mid nineteenth-century designs, such as those exhibited at the New York Crystal Palace Exposition of 1854.4

It is not known who designed the Carnegie goblet. Louis Comfort Tiffany became Vice President of Tiffany & Company after the death of his father in 1902, and it is likely that he designed this prestigious commission.5 However, it could also have been designed by Paulding Farnham, head of design at Tiffany & Company from 1885 to 1908. Although the gilt bronze goblet evokes the riches of the Gilded Age, the story it tells is that of an immigrant from humble beginnings who became the wealthiest man in the world – and then donated his fortune to better the lives of others.


1 Not all of the over 300 guests at the dinner would have received a goblet, but enough were made that quite a few have found their way into museum collections such as the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; High Museum of Art; New York Historical Society; Museum of the City of New York, to name a few.

2 Carnegie donated $450,000 toward the costs of the building, which was designed by Whitfield & King and completed in 1907.

3 “Andrew Carnegie’s Story,” Carnegie Corporation of New York, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.carnegie.org/interactives/foundersstory/#!/.

4This dichotomy was pointed out by Marilynn Johnson in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 1970 exhibition catalogue 19th Century America: Furniture and Other Decorative Arts,. No. 284

5 Sarah Coffin, who wrote about the goblet for the 2016 exhibition Passion for the Exotic: Louis Comfort Tiffany and Lockwood De Forest at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, shared a number of insights by email, including that Carnegie collected work by Tiffany Studios: stained glass and metal lamps as well as furnishings for his Fifth Avenue mansion.



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