Gorham's Japanese flatware pattern.(Gorham Manufacturing Company)

The objects made in the United States in the nineteenth century that were influenced in their decoration or form by the arts of Japan ranged from metalwork to ceramics, glass, furniture, textiles, wallpapers, jewelry--even gravestones and bathroom tissue. (1) Given this diversity, it is no wonder that dining implements were affected. This is not to suggest that there was a movement to take up eating with chopsticks, but Japanese art did influence the decoration of the silver flatware with which some Americans ate. Indeed, Japanesque silver dining implements appeared well before most other American-made items in the Japanese taste, yet in recounting the chronology of American arts influenced by Japan, many writers have completely ignored or greatly underemphasized the historical role played by flatware, especially the Japanese pattern by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island. (2)

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Initially American designers were inspired to create objects in the Japanese style by seeing Japanese art goods brought into the United States or Europe. Although a variety of such goods were imported into Europe as early as the sixteenth century, it was only after the opening of diplomatic relations with Japan in 1854 and of trade relations in 1858 that substantial quantities of them began to enter this country directly. (3) And even then there was a hiatus of at least fifteen years before the average American probably paid much attention to the arts of Japan. (4) It was not until the sensational Japanese display at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 and the publicity surrounding it that the American craze for things Japanese really took off.

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Retailers specializing in the direct import of Japanese goods appeared first in San Francisco and New York in 1876 or later. (5) There were a few early significant private American collections of Japanese art objects, such as that assembled by the painter, illustrator, muralist, and designer of stained-glass windows John La Farge (1835-1910), who began to collect in France in 1856 and 1857, (6) but these were not generally known until much later. Most large American public collections of Japanese art, such as that of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, were started only during or after the Centennial. The two classic secondary sources of Japanese design in English did not appear until the 1880s: Thomas W. Cutler, A Grammar of Japanese Ornament and Design (London, 1880), and George Ashdown Audsley, The Ornamental Arts of Japan (London, 1882-1884). And it was also not until the 1880s that the aesthetic movement, which embraced Japanese design as an ideal model for reforming the domestic interior, was maximally influential in this country. Yet American silverware with Japanese-inspired decoration was being sold as early as 1869.

Gorham was the first American firm to produce Japanesque silver, introducing small shallow bowls with Japanese style engraved decoration in 1869. (7) These were followed by other holloware forms in the Japanese taste from 1871 onward. Tiffany and Company of New York City was the first to introduce Japanesque silver flatware. On April 18,1871, it patented a full-line pattern called Japanese, (8) which was designed by Edward C. Moore (1827-1891), the head of Tiffany's silver department and its chief designer from 1868 until his death. Close behind Tiffany was Gorham, which introduced its first Japanese-inspired flatware pattern--also called Japanese--on June 17, 1871. (9) It was not patented, and its designer is unknown. These two preceded by almost a decade the earliest Japanese-inspired flatware in Europe not copied from American examples. (10)