Tiffany Studios

"Of Exquisite Beauty": The Production of Favrile Pottery

Although glass was Louis Tiffany’s favorite decorative medium, he also had a deep affinity for ceramics. This attraction likely began as a child, when he was a frequent visitor to Tiffany & Company, the business started and later owned by his father. There, Louis could admire both the antique pottery for sale as well as contemporary works by such illustrious European firms as Royal Copenhagen, Royal Doulton and Royal Berlin. Later, as a founding member and instructor at the Society of Decorative Arts in the late 1870s, Tiffany was aware of the numerous china decorating classes offered to the students, as well as the organization’s ceramic exhibitions. He later incorporated Persian and other exotic earthenware tiles into the interiors of all three of his private residences. Tiffany Studios held a major exhibition of French ceramicists, including Dalpayrat, Bigot and Doat, in early 1901 and, later that year, Tiffany’s leaded glass lamp shades began being paired with bases made by Grueby.

It was natural that Tiffany, with this considerable background in the artistic aspects of ceramics, would want to expand his company’s oeuvre. He was also very likely aware of the commercial opportunities based on the success of Grueby, Rookwood, Roseville, Teco and other American art pottery manufacturers that began operation in the last quarter of the 19^th century. The process of entering the pottery market began in late 1900:

"The Keramic Studio takes pleasure in announcing the fact that Mr. Louis Tiffany is busy experimenting in pottery, which no doubt means that he will finally produce something as artistic as his Favrile glass…. Mr. Tiffany is in the experimental state, but that he had been so charmed with the work of artist potters at the Paris Exposition, that he came home with the determination to try it, and that he would probably produce something in the luster bodies."

As he did with mosaics, fancy goods and leaded glass lamp shades, Louis Tiffany hired women to operate his new pottery division. Danish-born Edith Lautrop (1875-1963) was appointed the first head of the department. Alice Gouvy (1863-1924) and Lillian Palmié (1873-1944), already working with enamels, were additionally assigned to the pottery department. With glazes developed by Arthur J. Nash, the glasshouse’s superintendent, the women worked tirelessly to create stable body and glaze combinations that could survive being fired in the kiln.

The enterprise met with unexpected failures before their creations were ready to be seen by the public. Clara Driscoll described a particular disaster that occurred in March 1902:

"Their pottery things were nearly all spoiled that day; only about fifteen came out all right. Mr. Tiffany is not discouraged and has gone at it again as if hundreds—I don’t know but thousands—of dollars had not gone up in smoke that day. It is the way will all new things. They worked nearly three years at the iridescent glass before they got anything that was good enough to sell. Now that it is being imitated so, Mr. Tiffany is going to do pottery that will be different from anything anyone else can do."

They eventually succeeded and in 1904 Tiffany’s “Favrile Pottery” made its first official appearance at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Production was very limited but was a rousing critical success. A magazine article two years later gave a detailed description:

"The great facilities of the Tiffany Furnaces made it possible to conduct experiments on such a large scale that excellent results could be obtained very promptly. The body used is in porcelain, but for the plastic decorations other clays are employed. The slender forms chosen often approach those of the Favrile glassware. But while the last shows plant motifs in the forms of objects themselves, in the Tiffany ceramics plastic decorations are used. Water plants, especially the lotus and the poppy, are employed with great taste, and various kinds of creepers, cereals and the fuchsia… The vases are of exquisite beauty."

The three vases offered here are superior examples of the work produced by the Tiffany Studios. One (lot 462) is decorated with what appears to be Japanese anemone, the white body with an uneven brown-speckled tan glaze with green highlights. A second vase (lot 463) has a design of chestnut leaves and branches with a very unusual streaky glaze in shades of chestnut, aquamarine and dark green. 

The last example from the collection (lot 461) is one of most skillfully created pieces of pottery ever produced by the company. The broad unglazed bisque body is divided into three horizontal sections. The lower portion is enhanced with irregular vertical ribbing, while the two upper bands are superbly carved with a multitude of large dogwood blossoms. It was reputedly owned at one time by James “Jimmy” Stewart, who was 15 years old when he first started working at the Tiffany glasshouse in Corona. He was there for 35 years, eventually becoming one of only nine gaffers ever employed by the company. He collected Tiffany objects throughout his life, eventually assembling a collection “of more than 150 exquisite vases, glasses, lamps, tableware and similar products.”

Tiffany Studios manufactured a very limited number of ceramics because of the great technical difficulties encountered in its production. The division was closed around 1917 and it is estimated that only a total of approximately 2,000 pieces were ever created. These three examples beautifully and completely encapsulate the finest qualities of Tiffany’s pottery.

- PD