Walking past the shop windows on New York’s Fifth Avenue has always been a thrilling experience. The well-known scene from the Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in which Audrey Hepburn approaches the window of the fashionable Tiffany store, has become iconic. Indeed, the Tiffany windows were worth seeing, because Tiffany’s Window Dresser Gene Moore (1910-1998) worked on them.

For years, he created witty and beautiful window displays that made strollers look twice, smile and stare. Gene Moore’s windows at the legendary store created an atmosphere of an arts carnival, like an open-air museum exhibit. Meanwhile, that was Walter Hoving (1897 – 1989), president of Tiffany & Company (1955-1980), who handed the Tiffany windows over to Mr. Moore.

Gene Moore, who, at almost 80 years old, inspired by the circus arts, created a collection of miniature circus figures. It is amazing how Moore embodied the beauty, grace, and fearlessness of circus performers in sterling silver and enamel. The Tiffany Circus set was sold in leading Tiffany stores, as well as in other retailers across the country. Today, the items from this collection periodically appear at the most famous auctions in the world.

Circus collection, circa 1990, designed by Gene Moore for Tiffany & Co

The masters of the Tiffany jewelry company created more than 60 original figurines based on Moore’s design. Miniatures in the form of bold acrobats, funny clowns and menacing lions, tigers and bears enchanted everyone who saw them. Noteworthy, most of the jewelry ended up in the collection of Broadway producer and circus lover Robert Boyett (b. 1942).