A
Tiffany lamp is a type of lamp with many different types of glass shade. The most famous was the stained leaded glass lamp. Tiffany lamps are considered part of the
Art NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
movement.
History
The first Tiffany lamp was created around 1895. Beautiful in design and intricacy, each lamp was handmade by skilled craftsmen, not mass or machine produced. Its designer was not, as had been thought for over 100 years,
Louis Comfort TiffanyLouis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...
, but a previously unrecognized artist named Clara Driscoll was identified in 2007 by
RutgersRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
professor
Martin EidelbergMartin Eidelberg is a prominent American professor emeritus of art history at Rutgers University and expert on art pottery and Tiffany glass. He is notable for discovering that many famous floral lamp designs were not made by Louis Comfort Tiffany personally but by an underpaid and unrecognized...
as being the master designer behind the most creative and valuable leaded glass lamps produced by Tiffany Studios.
Tiffany's first business venture was an
interior designInterior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
firm in
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, for which he designed
stained glassThe term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
windows.
Most of his lamps can be grouped into one of seven specific categories:
Irregular Upper and
Lower Border, Favrile, Geometric,
Transition to Flowers,
Flowered Cone, and
Flowered Globe lamps. The Irregular Upper and Lower Border lamps carry an openwork crown edge that helps to simulate a branch, tree, or shrubbery. The Favrile category, which means handcrafted, identifies the first lamps Tiffany made with this label. His initials
LCT, later replaced the Favrile stamp. The Geometric category, done primarily by the male craftsman, speaks for itself. The Tiffany craftsman used geometric shapes such as triangles, squares, rectangles, and ovals to form these patterns for these lamps. Next is the Transition to Flowers group, which is subdivided into the Flowered Cone and Globe lamps. All of these lamps follow a nature, or botanical, design using flowers, dragonflies, spiders with webs, butterflies, and peacock feathers. The difference within these two smaller categories is the difference in the lamp shapes, basically a cone and a globe.
Production
Aside from their categorization every lamp is prepared by using the copper foil method. First a pattern for the lamp is drawn out on a heavy piece of cardboard. Next a number and glass color is written on the pattern piece. After the pattern is drawn and labeled, the glass is laid over it and traced. Once the pattern is traced onto the glass, the pieces can be cut and ground to their correct shape. Next the pieces need to be cleaned so the copper foil can be applied to the edges. The copper foil solution allows the pieces to adhere together. After the lamp has been placed accordingly and it is fully bonded, the edges need to be soldered together for a firm hold. Finally after the lamp has been soldered it is cleaned to bring out its beauty.
See also
- Tiffany glass
Tiffany glass refers to the many and varied types of glass developed and produced from 1878 to 1933 at the Tiffany Studios, by Louis Comfort Tiffany....
- Favrile glass
- Clara Driscoll (Tiffany glass designer)
External links