Tiffany Studios

Boca Raton Museum of Art, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artistry in Glass, The Seymour and Evelyn Holtzman Collection, Boca Raton, FL, 2007

William Feldstein, Jr. and Alastair Duncan, The Lamps of Tiffany Studios, New York, 1983, pp. 108-109 (for the shade and base pairing)

Alastair Duncan, Louis C. Tiffany: The Garden Museum Collection, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2004, pp. 14-15 and 17 (for in situ photographs of the shade) and 285 (for the shade and base pairing)

Marilynn A. Johnson, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages, London, 2005, p. 105 (for an in situ photograph of the shade)

Boca Raton Museum of Art, ed., Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artistry in Glass, The Seymour and Evelyn Holtzman Collection, Boca Raton, FL, 2007, p. 34 (for the present lot illustrated)

Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Lamps and Metalware, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2019, p. 79, no. 295-296 (for the shade and base pairing)

The apple tree was first cultivated in North America by the early colonists and by the 19th century was a staple crop, with an estimated 14,000 varieties producing over 200 million bushels of fruit. The trees commercial importance, in addition to its Biblical significance as well its profusion of gorgeous blossoms that were a prelude to Spring, made it appealing to Louis Tiffany for both personal and artistic reasons.

Tiffany was responsible for the landscaping at Laurelton Hall, his country estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and he had an orchard of apple trees planted on the property near the mansion. The flowering boughs of these trees were so impressive that they were probably the source of the apple blossom altar Tiffany created for the on-site marriage of his daughter Louise in April 1911.

The Apple Blossom table lamp offered here first appeared around 1902. The Wisteria model, with its irregular lower border, was introduced in 1901 and, based on its commercial success, the Grape, Trumpet Creeper and Apple Blossom designs soon followed. The company’s 1906 Price Guide priced the model at $425, making it their most expensive electric lamp at the time.

The design of the lamp is attributed to Clara Driscoll, the supervisor of the Women’s Glass Cutting Department at the time, but, like all of her designs, it was vetted and approved by Louis Tiffany. The shade depicts graceful yellow-streaked green branches gently descending from the cast bronze openwork crown with its shorter patinated bronze branches. Pendant from the branches are white-streaked green leaves and numerous yellow-centered white and pink flower clusters extending to the irregular lower border. Scattered among the petals are rich red side blooms waiting to blossom. The shade is supported by a richly patinated bronze base finely cast as a highly realistic tree.

The model was discontinued in 1910, probably due to the expense related to creating its complex design, and accounts for the lamp’s relative rarity.