Property from the Doros Collection
Charles de Kay
The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany
Auction Closed
December 14, 12:48 AM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Doros Collection
Charles de Kay
The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany
1914
with the original velvet-lined box designed by Louis C. Tiffany with deluxe clasps
number 5 from an edition of 10
published by Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, 1914
leather paper, gilt metal, cardboard, with vellum and textblock
inscribed No. 5/To my dear daughter Dorothy/with much love from/her Father/Xmas-1915
12 ½ x 9 ¾ x 2 ¾ in. (31.8 x 24.8 x 7 cm)
Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s youngest daughter
Bonham's, New York
Acquired through private sale from the above, 2015
Hugh F. McKean, The "Lost" Treasures of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, 1980, p. 8
Takeo Horiuchi, ed., The World of Louis Comfort Tiffany: A Selection from the Anchorman Collection, Nagoya-shi, 1994, p. 6
Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany: The Collected Works of Robert Koch, Atglen, PA, 2001, p. 146
Takeo Horiuchi, ed., A Selection of 300 Works from Louis C. Tiffany Garden Museum, Japan, 2001, p. 210
Alastair Duncan, Louis C. Tiffany: The Garden Museum Collection, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2004, p. 571
A. Cooney Frelinghuysen, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist's Country Estate, New York, 2006, p. 106
Timeless Beauty: The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany, Atglen, PA, 2016, p. 180
“[No one]... has affected the taste of the public more profoundly than Louis Comfort Tiffany...”
–CHARLES DE KAY
Louis Tiffany was 65 years old in 1913 and beginning to think about his legacy. He was especially concerned how his children would remember him once he was gone, so Tiffany hired Charles de Kay (1842-1920) to essentially ghostwrite his autobiography. De Kay was a noted American art critic, historian and writer as well as the uncle of Rodman Gilder, the husband of Tiffany’s daughter Louise.
The book, published in 1914, is dedicated “to my children” and its intent is made perfectly clear in the foreword. Believing “that hardly a person in his immediate circle knows what he [Tiffany] has achieved,” the remainder of the text details Tiffany’s accomplishments in painting, interior decorating, stained glass, enamels, jewelry, pottery, textiles, blown glass and architecture. Containing 62 plates, many of which are full page and in color, the book beautifully illustrates Tiffany’s accomplishments in all his artistic endeavors.
An edition of 492 copies were printed on parchment in Japan, which Tiffany gave to friends, acquaintances, museums and public libraries. There were an additional 10 copies with gilt bronze clasps, printed on vellum and placed in fitted velvet-lined cases that were presented to his family. The book offered here, one of the 10, was gifted to his youngest daughter, Dorothy. Other copies are in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art.
–PD