Louis Comfort Tiffany

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY (United States, 1848 - 1933).
Table lamp, ca. 1900.
Opaline and strongly iridescent yellow "Favrile" glass shade, patinated cast bronze foot.
Signed "L. C. T. Favrile" on the top edge of the shade, below the metal fixing ring.
Marked with the maker's monogram, with the inscription "LOUIS C. TIFFANY FURNACES INC." and with the numerals 16 A below the base.
Measurements: 42 cm

The Tiffany desk lamp in tender features a floral shaft with two curved arms emerging from its upper third. Its lampshade has been made in Favrile glass, a kind of glass patented by Tiffany in 1892. As we can see, Favrile glass has a peculiar characteristic that is common to some glass of classical antiquity: it has an iridescent quality. The iridescence causes the surface to shine, but also causes a degree of opacity. This iridescent effect of glass was obtained by mixing different colors of glass together while it was hot.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was the American artist and industrial designer most associated with the Art Nouveau movement. He was a painter, interior decorator, designer of stained glass windows and lamps, glass mosaics, blown glass, ceramics, jewelry and metalwork. Louis attended Eagleswood Military Academy in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. His early artistic training was as a painter, studying with George Inness and Samuel Coleman in New York City and with Leon Bailly in Paris. In about 1875 he became interested in the technique of glassmaking and worked in various Brooklyn glassworks. In 1879 he partnered with Samuel Colman and Lockwood de Forest to form Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artist. Tiffany's leadership and talent, along with his father's connections and financial resources made the business a success. Tiffany's desire to concentrate on glass as an artistic element led to the dissolution of the company in 1885, when he chose to establish his own glassmaking firm. The first Tiffany Glass Company was incorporated on December 1, 1885, and in 1900 became known as Tiffany Studios. In his factory he used opaque glass in a variety of colors and textures to create a unique style of stained glass, which contrasted with the method of transparent painted or enameled glass that had been the dominant methods of creating stained glass for hundreds of years in Europe. The use of stained glass for the creation of stained glass was motivated by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and its leader William Morris in England. Artist and glassmaker John La Farge was Tiffany's main competitor in this new American style of stained glass. The two had learned the trade in the same Brooking glass shop in the late 1870s. In 1893 Tiffany built a new factory, called Tiffany Glass Furnaces, located in Corona Queens, New York. That same year his new company introduced the term favrile in conjunction with its first blown glass production. Early examples of his lamps were exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. He registered the term favrile on November 13, 1894. He then extended the use of this term to his entire production of glass, enamel and ceramics. The first commercially produced lamps date from around 1895. Much of the production of his company was the realization of stained glass for windows and the creation of lamps, although his company designed a full range of decorative objects for interiors. At its peak, his factory had more than 300 craftsmen. Tiffany used all his skills in the design of his own house in Oyster Bay, New York, Long Island, which had 84 rooms and was completed in 1904. It was later donated to his foundation for art students, along with 243,000 m² of land, but was destroyed by fire in 1957. Tiffany maintained a close relationship with the family-owned Tiffany Company.