Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was born on February 18, 1848, the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of Tiffany and Company, and Harriet Olivia Avery Young. Instead of joining the family business, Tiffany pursued an artistic career, beginning as a painter. By the end of his long career, Tiffany worked in a variety of mediums ranging from leaded-glass windows, mosaics, glass, pottery, metalwork, enamels, jewelry, and interiors. In the 1860s, he travelled extensively through Europe, North America, and North Africa. By the late 1970s, he turned his attention towards decorative arts and interiors, designing and decorating the homes of many members of high society. On December 1, 1885, the Tiffany Glass Company was incorporated, later becoming known as Tiffany Studios in 1902. In late 1892 or early 1893, he built a glasshouse in Corona, Queens, NY with Arthur Nash, a skilled English glassworker. The furnaces developed a method where different colors were blended together while molten in order to achieve a subtle effect of shading and texture. He trademarked the word Favrile as the term to refer to glass blown from these unique furnaces. Favrile glass allowed craftsmen to use tonal graduations, lines, textures, and densities inherent in the material for pictorial details, allowing them to “paint” with glass. Following the death of his father in 1902, he became the first Design Director for Tiffany & Company. He died on January 17, 1933.
Louis Comfort Tiffany is featured in Edition: The Best of the Met
