TIFFANY STUDIOS | AN IMPORTANT AND RARE "AUTUMN WOODBINE" CHANDELIER

Mildred Jones, Anacortes, Washington

David and Sandra Bellis, Armonk, New York

Eugene and Eleanor Gluck, Florida

Christie’s New York, Magnificent Tiffany: The Gluck Collection, February 17, 1979, lot 36

Joel Schur, Los Angeles, California

Christie's New York, Important Art Nouveau: The Joel Schur Collection, December 14, 1985, lot 22

Dr. Egon Neustadt, The Lamps of Tiffany, New York, 1970, p. 180

Alastair Duncan, Tiffany At Auction, New York, 1981, p. 108, no. 292 (for the present lot illustrated)

Martin Eidelberg, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Nancy A. McClelland and Lars Rachen, The Lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, 2005, pp. 122-123

Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Lamps and Metalware, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2007, p. 225, no. 880 (for the present lot illustrated)

Margaret K. Hofer and Rebecca Klassen, The Lamps of Tiffany Studios: Nature Illuminated, New York, 2016, p. 123

The woodbine vine comes in a wide variety of species, but the Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is perhaps the most visually striking. Native to eastern North America, Claude Monet was so intrigued by the plant that he allowed it to grow uninhibited in his garden at Giverny and the vine eventually covered most of his studio and house, turning from a lush green in the spring to flaming shades of red in autumn.

Louis Tiffany was equally charmed by the vine. He decorated a corner of the library in his Bella Apartments home with an ornate and sumptuous woven wall hanging depicting a Virginia Creeper. Tiffany also extensively featured the plant when he later landscaped the exterior of his Laurelton Hall mansion: “The creepers frame the openings, giving a charm and graceful unity to everything….Can architectural embellishment, pediment or cornice surpass the fringe of living glory presented by the creepers? Always in style, exempt from even the dictation of Dame Fashion!”

Not surprisingly, the woodbine was translated into leaded glass lamp shades by the Tiffany Studios early in the company’s history. The plant was depicted in both 14- and 16-inch diameter models designed for table lamps. Those shades, while charming, are rather simplified, with their geometric backgrounds and relatively rigid representation of the foliage. The same cannot be said for the outstanding hanging shade offered here.

The octagonal chandelier is divided by eight vertical brown and yellow-streaked green columns, each extending slightly below the lower border, and two matching horizontal bands that represent a trellis—a decorative device the company also employed in its nasturtium, clematis and grape hanging shades. Over this latticework are slender green and mauve-brown vines and masses of swirled and ruffled five-fingered Virginia Creeper leaves in all of their fall glory, some still with hints of yellow and green but most in brilliant shades of red and scarlet with hints of violet and fuchsia. Those, and the small clusters of dark blue berries, are artistically positioned against a strikingly contrasting rich blue background.

A fascinating property of this shade is the extensive use of dichroic glass. This feature, in which the glass appears as one color with reflective light but as a totally different color under refractive light, is somewhat common in Tiffany’s blown Favrile glass. It is, however, an unexpected surprise when discovered in the firm’s sheet glass used to produce its leaded glass windows and shades. In this instance, it is particularly noteworthy in the background passages. While it appears as a sky-blue when the lamp is unlit, it dramatically changes to red-streaked violet, green and yellow with remitted light. The use of this exceptional glass, together with its brilliant design and masterful palette, all contribute to this shade being a magnificent example of the model.

PAUL DOROS