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LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY
(American, 1848-1933)
Table Lamp
Glass and bronze
19 7/8 x 12 ½ x 8”
Bequest of George and Susan Proskauer 1992.17.131

Louis Comfort Tiffany was trained as a painter, but after 1880 he devoted himself primarily to decorative work and to the design and production of glass. Tiffany—not to be confused with his jeweler father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of the firm that still bears the family name—was an imaginative designer of interiors and an inventive glass artist. He was praised for his stained glass windows, glass mosaics, lamps, and his trademark “Favrile” glassware, for which glass of different colors was combined while still molten, and then was blown and twisted together to achieve stunning freeform shapes and iridescent results. Tiffany was inspired by the natural world around him, and his glass often bears botanical forms, shapes, and colors. This table lamp subtly combines nature with modern technology. The delicate glass shades—which feature Tiffany’s “feather pull-up” decoration in shades of white, green, and yellow—rest atop bulbous bronze members attached to the botanically inspired four branch base. When illuminated, the light behind the elegant shades undoubtedly casts a warm glow and enhances the coloration of the glass.