A facsimile edition of artist Meta Overbeck’s notebook of Tiffany & Co. jewelry designs, along with a fascinating introductory essay about the significance of the book.

This archival treasure contains exquisite gemstone compositions that were a source of designs for Louis Comfort Tiffany’s increasingly well-known company in the early twentieth century.

Meta Overbeck (1879-1956) was an artist and longtime head of the enamel and jewelry department at Tiffany & Co. Throughout her time at Tiffany, Overbeck built her design book, a carefully assembled, thirty-six-page tour de force. She rendered her jewelry designs in gouache, watercolor, ink, and pencil before adding her meticulous annotations and piecing together the drawings onto kraft paper.

Overbeck’s niece donated her aunt’s sketchbook to the Morse Museum in 1978, where it is housed as a permanent exhibit. Both the exhibit and this facsimile reproduction ensure that Meta Overbeck’s remarkable talent and her vital contributions to the Tiffany legacy reach as wide an audience as possible.