The Doros Collection: The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany
The Doros Collection: The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Property formerly in the Collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Tiffany Studios
"Aventurine" Vase
Auction Closed
June 7, 10:21 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property formerly in the Collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Tiffany Studios
"Aventurine" Vase
circa 1897
Favrile glass
engraved Louis C. Tiffany/o3044 with the firm’s partial paper label
10 in. (25.4 cm) high
9¼ in. (23.5 cm) diameter
Percy A. Joseph, New York, 1936
Lillian Nassau, New York
Jim’s Antiques, Lambertville, New Jersey, 1999
"Favrile Glass," The House Beautiful, vol. 7, 1900, p. 275 (for the present lot illustrated)
Lewis F. Day, "Favrile Glass," The Magazine of Art, vol. 24, 1900, p. 543 (for the present lot illustrated)
"The Paris Salons," The Artist, vol. 31, no. 259, August 1901 (for the present lot illustrated)
"Tiffany Favrile Glass," The Housekeeper, October 1902, p. 22 (for the present lot illustrated)
Charles deKay, The Art Work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, 1914, p. 26C (for the present lot illustrated)
"Favrile Glass, From the Private Collection of Its Designer, Louis C. Tiffany," Art News, April 4, 1936, p. 13 (for the present lot illustrated)
Paul Doros, The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, 2013, pp. 188 and 203 (for the present lot illustrated)
A Glassmaking Tour de Force: The "Aventurine" Vase
Although there is no record of Louis Tiffany ever discussing a particular piece of blown Favrile glass, it is highly probable that this vase was among his favorites. The Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company thought it so important as to make it the first piece illustrated in the fifth edition of its Tiffany Favrile Glass catalog (1899). Tiffany then managed to place a photograph of the vase in five additional publications between 1899 and 1902. It is presumed that Louis Tiffany kept the vase after its return to the United States and it was eventually displayed at his Laurelton Hall mansion on Long Island. Later, the piece was one of only six blown glass vases illustrated in The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany (1914), his authorized biography. The vase stayed at Laurelton Hall until 1936, when Percy A. Joseph purchased it and several other pieces from the Tiffany estate for a special exhibition in New York City. It was probably included in the Tiffany Studios liquidation auction organized by Joseph and Walter Jacobson that was held the following month.
The vase is incredible from a technical aspect. The tooled swirls in varying degrees of relief and the iridescence ranging from bright gold to brassy red vividly illustrate the gaffer’s extraordinary skills. This is also Tiffany’s most daring use of aventurine, a technique first used in 15th century Venice. By adding sparkling metallic filings to the molten glass, the Venetian artisans were able to imitate the glittering nature of aventurine crystals. Tiffany’s glass craftsmen in this example added copper filings, probably in combination with chromic oxide, throughout the piece, with some coming to the surface and turning a bright shade of green, helping to mark this vase as a glassmaking tour de force.
- PD