Beaker

Produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) in 1897, the beaker is made from iridescent Favrile glass with a hook-pulled feather decoration in undulating bands of pale blue, yellow and brown around its rim. Manufactured by blowing glass into a mould, the vessel’s form is low-waisted and flares outwards towards its circular rim.

Louis Comfort Tiffany patented his lusterware in 1881, and registered Favrile as a trademark in 1894. [1] Extremely desirable at the turn of the century, the ‘soft, incandescent sheen’ [2] of Tiffany glassware took inspiration from the lustrous colours of Roman and Syrian excavated blown glass. [3]

Tiffany’s process of manufacturing gold lusterware was experimental and innovative:

‘Lustre glass was made by dissolving salts of rare metals in the molten glass and keeping them in an oxidized state while subjecting the glass to the flame to produce the chemical reaction. Then the piece was sprayed with chloride, which made it crackle and break up into a mass of fine lines that picked up the light. Different effects were produced with different metals – pearly sheen, golden lustre, rich deep blues.’ [4]

The beaker is engraved ‘L.C.T G2037’ on its base around the pontil, indicating that this vessel was produced in 1897.

The late 19th-century enthusiasm for non-European artistic traditions had produced English Aestheticism and Japonisme. Tiffany would have encountered these movements during his travels to London and Paris (1865-1866) [5] and through contact with artistic circles in New York. [6] These stylistic developments in Europe, in combination with the ideals of English Arts and Crafts, informed Tiffany’s fashionable Art Nouveau designs.

Vanessa Tothill, November 2020

[1] John Loring, Louis Comfort Tiffany at Tiffany & Co. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002), pp. 241-42.

[2] Vivienne Couldrey, The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany (London: Quarto Publishing, 1989), p. 100.

[3] Couldrey, pp. 41, 45.

[4] Couldrey, pp. 98-100.

[5] https://www.tiffanystudios.org/tiffany-chronology.html [accessed 24 November 2020]

[6] Couldrey, pp. 18, 38-40.