Meet Tiffany Jewelry Designer, Meta K. Overbeck, In Facsimile of Sketchbook Now Available in Morse Museum Shop - The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art

Meet Tiffany Jewelry Designer, Meta K. Overbeck, In Facsimile of Sketchbook Now Available in Morse Museum Shop

Note to editors: High-resolution images of the book cover and selected pages of Meta Overbeck’s Designs for Louis C. Tiffany Art Jewelry are available by contacting [email protected].

WINTER PARK, FL—The Museum Shop at The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art is delighted to offer Meta Overbeck’s Designs for Louis C. Tiffany Art Jewelry, a beautiful facsimile of Margaret “Meta” K. Overbeck’s original sketchbook. This publication features Meta Overbeck’s jewelry designs and highlights the Morse Museum’s recent research into her life and work.

Meta Overbeck (1879–1956) started working for Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) in 1902 for the enamel department and became the supervisor of the art jewelry department in 1914, where she served for nearly two decades. Meta Overbeck’s designs for brooches, necklaces, and rings—drawn in pencil, ink, and watercolor from around 1914 to 1933—capture the cultural and artistic trends of the time. The sketchbook contains hundreds of her renderings.

In 1978, Meta Overbeck’s niece donated the sketchbook to the Morse Museum, where it is currently featured in the ongoing exhibition Art Jewelry, Favrile Metalwork & Precious Glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Accompanying the new facsimile is a scholarly essay describing the life and art of Meta Overbeck, the second of two jewelry designers working for Louis Comfort Tiffany and under his moniker at Tiffany & Co. (1837–present). The essay by the Museum Director and Chief Curator, Jennifer Perry Thalheimer, sheds light on Meta Overbeck’s impact on Louis Comfort Tiffany’s enamel and art jewelry department.

“This facsimile ensures that Meta Overbeck’s remarkable talent and her vital contributions to the Louis Comfort Tiffany legacy, reach as wide an audience as possible,” said Jennifer Perry Thalheimer, Museum Director and Chief Curator.

For more information about Meta Overbeck’s Designs for Louis C. Tiffany Art Jewelry or to explore the Morse Museum Shop’s products, please visit shop.morsemuseum.org.

The Morse Museum is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, including the chapel interior he designed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and art and architectural elements from his Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall. The Museum’s holdings also include American art pottery, late 19th- and early 20th-century American paintings, graphics, and history of design objects. For more information about the Morse Museum, please visit morsemuseum.org.

###