Tiffany Studios Rare Internally Decorated Vase

Description

Tiffany Studios
circa 1912
Rare Internally Decorated "Aquamarine" exhibition quality Tiffany Favrile Glass Vase
Engraved L.C. Tiffany-Favrile 5822 G, with firms paper label
Height 12 in. (30.48 cm.), Diameter 5 in. (12.70 cm.)
Provenance
Christie's New York
Important Tiffany Glass from The Minna Rosenblatt Gallery
December 10,2003
Lot 454
LITERATURE:
John Loring, Louis Comfort Tiffany at Tiffany & Co., New York, 2002,Martin Eidelberg, Tiffany Favrile Glass and the Quest for Beauty, New York, 2007
Catalogue note:
AQUAMARINE
One of the last major innovations in Tiffany Studios' glassmaking was the introduction of Aquamarine glass about 1912.
The Tiffany craftsmen had been using paperweight techniques for a decade (works in which floral motives were worked in hot glass and then encased within layers of additional glass).
Those made around 1900 generally had a shimmering golden background but, around 1910, this changed to a clear, transparent glass.
Aquamarine glass introduced a subtle, green-tinged material that suggested a watery realm.
Cased within the glass are yellow flowered plants like the one in this vase, floating in an aqueous world is this water lily.
To further the illusion of watery depths, the glass itself is quite thick offering the viewer different perspectives such as one has when peering through actual water.
Tiffany Studios' difficulty in making this glass was constantly emphasized. Not only was there the difficulty of properly annealing the many layers but equally challenging was the manipulation of the weighty glass ball while it was still hot and fluid.
These technical difficulties caused much breakage, and the Aquamarine vases were costly as a result.
Several examples were shown at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco.
Martin Eidelberg
Literature
Elizabeth Lounsbery, "Aquamarine Glass," American Homes and Gardens, vol. 10, December 1913, p. 419 (for a period illustration of other aquamarine vases)
Albert Christian Revi, American Art Nouveau Glass, Camden, NJ, 1968, p. 61, pl. 94 (for an illustration of an aquamarine glass doorstop with nearly identical decoration in the collection of the New York Historical Society)
Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany's Art Glass, New York, 1977, p. 28 (for other examples in the collection of the Haworth Art Gallery,
Accrington, Lancashire, England)Vivienne Couldrey, The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany, London, 2001, p. 97 (for another example,
Haworth Art Gallery)Martin Eidelberg and Nancy McClelland, Behind the Scenes of Tiffany Glassmaking: The Nash Notebooks, New York, 2001, p. 75 (for another example formerly in the collection of Leslie Hayden Nash)Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany, The Collected Works of Robert Koch, New York, 2001, p. 199 (for another example, Haworth Art Gallery)Alastair Duncan, Louis C. Tiffany: The Garden Museum Collection, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2004, pp. 264-265 (for other examples and a sketch by Leslie Hayden Nash of two aquamarine vases)