Tiffany Studios
Eighteen-Light "Lily" Table Lamp
Auction Closed
April 20, 09:25 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Tiffany Studios
Eighteen-Light "Lily" Table Lamp
Executed circa 1910.
favrile glass, patinated bronze
sixteen shades each engraved L.C.T.; one shade engraved L.C.T. Favrile
base impressed 383/TIFFANY STUDIOS/NEW YORK
20¾ in. (52.7 cm.) high
Christie's New York, The Irving M. Feldstein Collection, May 26, 1983, lot 394
Wolf Family Collection No. 0631 (acquired from the above)
Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, The History of Glass, London, 2000, p. 198
Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Cologne, 2006, p. 140
David A. Hanks, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection, exh. cat., Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago, 2013, p. 50
Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Lamps and Metalware, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2019, p. 90, nos. 347 and 348
From its introduction at the 1902 Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorative Moderna in Turin, Italy, the Eighteen-Light “Lily” Table Lamp was one of Tiffany Studios’ most celebrated lamp models. The exhibition prompted designers to create functional objects “that show a decisive tendency toward aesthetic renewal of form.” In Tiffany’s case, the “Lily” demonstrated both aesthetic and technical renewal as one of the firm’s first electrified lamps. The highly naturalistic design evokes a cluster of golden yellow lilies branching from a base of lily pads. The delicately arched stems accommodated thin electrical wires to be threaded up to the sockets; they also enabled the bulbs and richly iridized shades to be suspended vertically, mimicking the organic downturn of the flowers and cleverly casting warm light. The lamp’s innovation and beauty earned Tiffany the grand prix in Turin, and its continuing popularity encouraged the creation of twelve, ten, seven and three-light variations.