| Object ID |
1976.76 |
| Object Name |
Vase |
| Dimensions |
H-5.25 inches |
| Early Date |
1900 |
| Late Date |
1910 |
| Made By |
Tiffany Furnaces |
| Description |
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), was the son of Charles L. Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Company, the internationally renowned jeweler of New York. As a young man Tiffany had been trained as a painter, and in 1876 he exhibited several pictures at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. There he was inspired, as were many others by the decorative arts of exotic cultures which had captured his attention in years previous during travels abroad. In 1879, he joined with Candace Wheeler, Lockwood de Forest, and Samuel Colman to form an interior decorating company called the Associated Artists. This group provided custom textiles, woodwork, tiles and stained glass for the homes of some of the wealthiest men of the day. Tiffany, who created the stained glass windows for these commissions, organized his own business in 1885, Tiffany Glass Company, to produce windows independently, and to continue his experiments with glass.
At the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Tiffany exhibited a chapel of mosaics and stained glass, for which he earned 54 medals and international recognition. Among his admirers was the prominent Parisian art dealer, S. Bing, a champion of the Art Nouveau style, who began selling Tiffany's works in his gallery. That same year, Tiffany began the production of Favrile glassware, a line of artistic vases and decorative tablewares which, while still expensive, were available to a wider audience. In 1899, he started making the leaded glass lamps for which he is now famous.
Tiffany's innovative creations found a ready market in America, where the popularity of art glass such as Amberina and Peachblow had begun in the 1870s. Tiffany aspired to provide superior, and even enlightening, objects for the home in his belief that "it is all a matter of education and we shall never have good art in our homes until the people learn to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly."
Tiffany's long-time fascination with ancient glass led him to develop glass that replicated its textures and iridescent qualities. This irridescent vase is one of thousands of objects blown at the Tiffany Furnaces. The term "favrile," derived from the Old English word for hand-made, was registered as a Tiffany trademark in 1894, and was described as: "a hand-made glass or vitrified body invented and used more particularly for the making of colored or stained glass windows, mosaics, glassware, etc. . . . It may therefore be either flat, foliated, convoluted, cylindrical, globular or cubical, of one color or many, laminated, floriated or foliatious."
This outstanding example of Favrile glass is decorated with millefiori (Italian for thousand flowers), thin discs of colored glass that were applied to the surface of the blown object, which was then rolled on a flat surface until the designs were completely embedded. Threads of colored glass were then pulled across the surface to create tendrils, after which the glass was subjected to tin-chloride fumes to achieve what the company called a "diversified radiance of iridescence." Other types of favrile glass included laminated glass, which resembled agate; Cypriote glass, which had the pitted surface of ancient glass; lava glass, which simulated volcanic rock; and glass in flower forms, which, perhaps, were among the most beautiful of Tiffany's many stunning creations. |
| Credit |
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Limric |
|
