An American Silver 'Martelé' Fruit Dish, Gorham Mfg. Co., Providence, Rhode Island; retailed by Spaulding and Co., Chicago, 1897

Historical Design Collection Inc., New York
Wolf Family Collection No. 1088 (acquired from the above on January 11, 1994)

Probably Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, November 1897.

J. Pristo, Martelé, Gorham's Nouveau Art Silver, 2002, p. 249.

This fruit dish was sample no. 9160. It was formed over 25 hours, then chased 39 hours; the next factory price was set at $88.  

The Christmas 1897 inscription makes it very likely that this piece was part of the very first public showing of Martelé, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel beginning November 15, 1897.  A review in the Jewelers Circular noted:
There is now on view in the East room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, an exhibition of hand wrought silver by the Gorham Mfg. Co., different in kind from anything yet presented to the American public.  The exhibition is intended to awaken general interest in a renaissance of the work of the silversmith of years ago - a return to the true manufacture of silverware as in old days, as distinguished from the machine made ware of today.  In the hundreds of pieces shown there is not one of the company's regular productions, all being made entirely for this exhibition... while the designs generally are by one man, W.C. Codman, art director of the Gorham Mfg. Co.'s designing department, the articles themselves were wrought under his direction by different skilled silver workers, and show to a considerable extent the individuality of the makers.
(Pristo, op. cit., pp. 16-17).