Cigarette Case

Tiffany & Co.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This cigarette case and a related match case (41.140.3) are rare surviving examples of Tiffany & Co.’s laminated metalwork, also called "mixed metal" in company records and known to the Japanese as mokume. In mokume (meaning "wood grain" or, literally, "wood eye"), thin sheets of differently colored metals and alloys are laminated, folded to increase the number of layers, cut through or bent, and, finally, hammered to produce marbleized patterns.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art