Decorative Items from the Stained Glass Masters Gallery
Click on the number next to a piece to learn more about it.
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Watercolor on paper
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Signed, titled, and dated
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1913
Louis Comfort Tiffany came to the Tiffany Furnaces one Monday in October 1913 with a watercolor he had recently painted. It was this spray of morning glories. Tiffany was aware that Arthur Nash, the superintendent of the glasshouse, was experimenting with special formulas that created a glass that reacted and changed colors when struck with heat. Tiffany said, “Try these with your new glass.” In other words, he wanted his painting reproduced in glass. After numerous failures, the gaffers finally succeeded by using five different types of reactive glass. They had created what became known as the Morning Glory paperweight vase.
Leslie H. Nash, the son of Arthur Nash and an employee of Tiffany Furnaces, relayed the above information in his unpublished memoirs. He went on to note that the company had spent $12,000 in materials and labor by the time the first successful vase had been created. That would be about $295,500 in 2017. Thus, the price of the completed vases was quite high.
Additionally, an archival photograph taken at Tiffany Furnaces in October 1925 shows a display of prize pieces. Among the items displayed are two Morning Glory paperweight vases and this Morning Glory watercolor painted by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
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Study of Morning Glories
Louis Comfort Tiffany
At Tiffany Studios, the first step in producing a stained-glass window was to prepare one or more watercolor sketches. Usually relatively small, they showed subject, composition, and palette. Watercolor was well-suited to this process because the translucency of the water-based paints resembled the translucency of the colored glass. A designer made these sketches. While Tiffany himself made some of the sketches, he increasingly relied on a large staff of talented artists, including Frederick Wilson, Edward Peck Sperry, Joseph Lauber, J. A. Holzer, Will H. Low, Clara Wolcott Driscoll, and Agnes F. Northrop. The latter was the principal designer of floral stained glass compositions, meaning she perhaps painted these beautiful roses.
Next, Tiffany approved the sketches, and then, the client selected a design. The chosen design was enlarged into a cartoon or full-scale drawing of the window with thick lines to indicate leading. The cartoon was usually in black or white. The designer then made two tracings of the cartoon. One served as the pattern for the window assembly. The other was cut into templates for producing the many individual glass shapes and sizes required for the pattern. Special colorists chose sheets of glass for their appropriate color and texture. Once all the glass for the window was selected and cut, the glazier put together the window using either the leaded-glass technique or the copper foil technique.
The designer oversaw every stage of a window’s production to ensure its faithful translation from sketch to finished work. This sketch undoubtedly resulted in an exquisite window.
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Watercolor Sketch for a Rose Window
Tiffany Studios, Unidentified designer
Tiffany had a lifelong fascination with color and light that inspired many of his creations. Not surprisingly, his design repertoire expanded with the advent of electric lighting. In 1885, the Lyceum Theater in New York City became the first theater in the world to have electric footlights due to a collaboration between Tiffany and Thomas A. Edison. Tiffany also created electric sconces for the theater. Five years later, he created distinctive metalwork and blown-glass lighting for the Havemeyer home. In 1893, he displayed two spectacular hanging fixtures at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. These endeavors were precursors to his famous lamps.
By 1898, Tiffany was creating hanging and standing lamps and electroliers. His lamps with leaded glass shades similar to his stained glass windows became very popular. He usually paired these shades with his own bronze bases. He adapted nature motifs from his windows to his lampshades, including fruits, flowers, blossoming vines, and trees. The “Women’s Department” at the Tiffany firm was largely responsible for producing these lampshades, and many of them were designed by Clara Driscoll. The firm also made student and library lamps with blown shades, reading lamps with glass “turtleback” tiles, and simple shades with geometric designs.
Each shade was assembled on a solid wooden form on which was marked the arrangement of the individual pieces of glass. The palette and the different kinds of glass selected gave the shades their individuality. The artisan selected and joined hundreds of pieces into complex designs. It took him or her up to a week to complete this process. The pieces of glass were then held together using the copper foil method.
There were eventually hundreds of lampshade designs. Considered luxury goods, the lampshades ranged in price from $30 to $750. Despite some uniformity and a utilitarian purpose, the lampshades are still beautiful artistic objects.
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Tiffany Lamps
In 1891, wealthy art collectors Louisine and Henry Osborne Havemeyer commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany in partnership with Samuel Colman to decorate their mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Sixty-Sixth Street in New York City. Tiffany had impressed them with the creative originality he had shown in decorating other residences. They gave Tiffany almost free reign and an unlimited budget. They were his most ardent patrons, and their home was one of his most prestigious decorating projects.
Tiffany used glass lavishly in windows, doors, walls, and elsewhere in the home. He also designed and had fabricated furniture, textiles, and wall coverings for the house, creating a dramatic blend of East and West.
This massive oak chair was designed for the library in the residence. The interlaced strapwork design that repeats itself throughout the carved oak frame and quilted silk velvet upholstery was inspired by Celtic and Norwegian prototypes. This motif was continued in the room’s mantel, architectural trim, and stenciled wall pattern to ensure a single artistic vision. In her memoir, Mrs. Havemeyer indicated that the chair frame was finished with many coats of varnish buffed to create an effect resembling Japanese lacquer work. The mate to this chair is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
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H. O. Havemeyer House Armchair
Louis Comfort Tiffany, Tiffany Glass Company, 1891–1892
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Untitled Painting
John La Farge
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Wall Sconce
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Table
Tiffany and Armand Calliat