Tiffany & Co. employed several talented artists and designers, including Edward C. Moore and George Paulding Farnham among others, to design the silver, jewelry, and luxury items crafted by the company. The company also operated the Tiffany School, which taught students the principles of design through the support of its extensive design library and its collection of Asian and Middle Eastern artifacts, and by having students prepare sketches and designs from nature. It is not surprising, considering this pool of talent, that the staff of New York Governor Levi P. Morton commissioned Tiffany & Co. to create this hand-lettered and decorated testimonial of thanks for the New York Central Railroad’s transporting Japanese dignitary Marshal Yamagata Arimoto from Buffalo to New York City in April 1896.