Louis C. Tiffany Favrile Domed Paperweight

Description

The peacock feather reproduced on this paperweight is based on a swirling feather design from an original Favrile vase by American decorative artist Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848–1933) in the Museum’s collection.

Glass. Gift boxed. 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, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studios made pottery, furniture, textiles, jewelry, and works in bronze and enamel. In the early 1890s, he 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).