21/10/2026
New York, New York!
After 13 days at sea, RMS Russia arrived in New York on 20th October 1876, completing the first leg of Christopher Dresser’s momentous journey to Japan. Despite gales and strong headwinds, the Cunard ship had been in the capable hands of the experienced Captain Cook! Yes, Captain Theodore Cook! Charles Dickens famously mentioned both the ship and captain in American Notes. Returning from New York to Liverpool in April 1868, Dickens wrote a glowing testimonial about the safety, speed and management of the vessel under Cook’s command.
Dresser would have disembarked at one of Cunard’s private piers on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. As a first class passenger he would not have had to pass through immigration and would have immediately entered one of the world’s busiest and most chaotic gateways. The iconic Statue of Liberty would not become a landmark for another ten years, although her right arm and torch were being displayed in Philadelphia at the Centennial Exposition. Dresser himself was recorded in Philadelphia several days later, but his whereabouts in the intervening period is open to speculation. Did he visit any places of interest? George Lynde Catlin compiled and published a pocket guide with maps specifically for visitors to New York and Philadelphia. It featured attractions including the Battery at Manhattan’s southern tip, with its splendid harbour views, Trinity Church, St. Paul’s Church, City Hall Park, the old Dutch Church and Central Park. Whether Dresser had the time or inclination to visit any of them is unknown as he may have had more pressing business.
At the time, Henry Dresser, the eldest son of Christopher and Thirza Dresser, lived in New York. He had worked for Grant & Gask, a major London drapery firm on Oxford Street, before sailing to New York in 1871, aged 17. The 1875 Albany directory lists him as a salesman. Whether he met his father in October 1876 is unknown, but Henry became a naturalised United States citizen a week after his father’s arrival in New York. Was this significant? Little is known about Henry’s later life, though he likely abandoned two families before dying in obscurity in the early twentieth century.
One of the most prestigious stores in New York, Tiffany & Co. had a flagship building located at 15 Union Square West in Manhattan. Costing $5000,000 at the time it was famously described as a “palace of jewels”. The company commissioned Dresser to acquire Japanese artefacts and send them back to New York as inspiration for their designers. Dresser possibly visited the store soon after he arrived in New York and before he travelled to Philadelphia. Company founder Charles Lewis Tiffany and his son, Louis Comfort Tiffany, would undoubtedly have known Dresser’s work, as he was a household name in America. This meeting would have been especially relevant to Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose strong interest in Japanese art coincided with his emerging career in interior design. In 1878, he began redesigning an apartment for his young family around what he considered the finest qualities of Japanese art and aesthetics, and a meeting with Dresser two years earlier may have influenced this work. In his book on Japan, Dresser recalled “I certainly had the honour of being entrusted by Messrs Tiffany & Co. with the choice of any objects that I might think calculated to aid in the development of their silversmith business; and it is interesting to me to know that after a careful and most intelligent consideration of these objects, Messrs. Tiffany and Co. produced works that won the firm the “grand prix” at the latest Paris exhibition”. Dresser’s role with Tiffany & Co. may therefore have gone beyond selecting Japanese objects, with his expertise shaping one of America’s leading design houses.
