Louis C. Tiffany Dogwood Christmas Ornament

Description

The image on our hand-painted glass ornament is adapted from the luminous Dogwood window in the Museum's American Wing, made by Tiffany Studios about 1900–1915.

Hand-painted glass. Includes ribbon for hanging. 3 1/2" diam.

Art History

A master of many media, Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848–1933) was one of America’s most noted decorative artists at the turn of the twentieth century. Son of the founder of the silver and jewelry firm Tiffany & Co. of New York, Louis C. Tiffany began his career as a painter but moved quickly to interior decoration and leaded-glass windows, creating revolutionary types of opalescent glass that radiated especially deep, vibrant hues. Using variations in color and thickness of glass, he achieved pictorial effects of unsurpassed subtlety and beauty. In addition to stained-glass windows and lighting fixtures, his Studios made pottery, furniture, textiles, jewelry, and works in bronze and enamel. In the early 1890s, Louis Comfort Tiffany developed a method of blending different colors together in glass while it was in a molten state, thus achieving subtle effects of shading and texture. He called this type of glass, which was often noted for its iridescence, Favrile glass (from fabrile, an Old English word meaning hand-wrought).