Cigar Lighter

Gorham Manufacturing Company · c. 1900

Medium

Copper and mixed metals

Original size

6.4 × 11.8 × 7.4 cm (2 1/2 × 4 5/8 × 2 7/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

This ornate cigar lighter, crafted by the Gorham Manufacturing Company around 1900, belongs to a golden era of American decorative metalwork when functional objects were treated as serious works of art. Gorham, founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1831, became the premier silver and metalwork house in the United States, supplying everything from domestic tableware to elaborate exhibition pieces. By the turn of the century the firm had mastered the blending of copper and mixed metals in richly worked forms, drawing on Japanese shakudo techniques and the vocabulary of the Aesthetic Movement to produce objects dense with surface texture, contrasting tones, and sculptural detail. The cigar lighter held at the Art Institute of Chicago exemplifies this approach — intricate, purposeful, and unmistakably American in its ambition. Gorham's metalwork was widely exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, cementing the company's international reputation for craftsmanship at the highest level. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates the warm patina of copper and the play of light across its worked surfaces into paint, preserving the richness and tactile presence of the original while making this remarkable object accessible as a work to live with and admire daily.