Avec ces giboulées, il vaut mieux
rester à l’abri. Je lis « Auction central news », et tombe sur cet
article sur les lampes Tiffany. En voici la reproduction intégrale, pour vous
obliger (un peu) à cultiver votre anglais !
Tiffany lamps are magical
artifacts in the collecting world. Illuminate one, and all the creative passion
that went into its conception electrifies the viewer today.
This transmitted passion has been
the catalyst for great collections formed in the past. Many of the jewel-like
lamps are now on display in museums for all to enjoy. But other notable
collections have come back on the market, giving today’s appreciative buyers a
chance to live with those heart-stopping displays of colored light.
Floral themes with precise
renderings of different blossoms were popular for both lamp shades and windows.
The Apple Blossom lamp has Tiffany Studios marks on the shade and slender
tree-form base. The arched window was originally installed in a home in Fife,
Scotland. Garden Museum Collection, Michaan’s Auctions
Allen Michaan and his auction
firm in Alameda, California, were chosen to handle the sale of one of the
greatest assemblages of Tiffany creations ever amassed, the Garden Museum
Collection from Japan.
The Venetian/9th Century lamp
with its intricate shade and base complements Tiffany desk accessories. Part of
the 2012 auction of the Garden Museum Collection from Japan, this example
brought $112,100 at Michaan’s. Garden Museum Collection, Michaan’s Auctions
Perfectly suited to the shade’s
shape, dragonflies were a popular motif that Tiffany adapted to several lamp
designs. From the Malakoff collection, this example has the desirable dropped
heads that extend below the bottom rim of the shade and brought $245,000 at
Christie’s in December 2014. Courtesy Christie’s
Introduced around 1900, the
Cobweb or Spiderweb lamp was one of Tiffany’s most intricate designs. The broad
mosaic-decorated base originally held combustible fuel while later examples
were illuminated with three electric lightbulbs. Difficult to produce and
expensive to purchase when made – a steep $500 – the design is at the top of
any collector’s wish list. Courtesy of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
A turning point came in the 1870s
when Louis C. Tiffany became fascinated with the properties of glass, an
interest that he expressed in architectural windows for domestic and
ecclesiastical properties, glass-shaded lamps, and formulas for art glass.
Drawing on influences classical and exotic, Tiffany developed a well-defined
aesthetic style and became sought after as an interior designer, a career where
he could put his love of glass into play. In 1882, President Chester Arthur
asked Tiffany to spruce up the White House, for which he created gas light
fixtures and a fabulous stained glass screen wall for the Entrance Hall. Sadly,
there can be no time machine tour of all the rooms he decorated. Vintage photos
exist, but President Theodore Roosevelt changed everything out again when came
to office.
In the Tiffany workshop, crews of
craftsmen transformed artists’ designs into paintings in glass. Garden Museum
Collection, Michaan’s Auctions
Tiffany’s first lamps were made
in the late 1890s, some still using combustible fuels. He had his own
glassmaking company by this time. In 1902, he named his multibranched firm
Tiffany Studios, while he also served as design director for the family Tiffany
& Co. brand. Tiffany Studios had their own showroom at 45th and Madison in
New York. A vintage photograph from the early 20th century shows a varied
display of windows, hanging light fixtures, and lamps integrated into elaborate
desk and table settings. Other early images show teams of men and woman
assembling thousands of pieces of glass into lamps and windows.
Tiffany used wisteria flower
patterns for lamps of various sizes as well as large landscape windows. Glass
colors vary from shade to shade. Collectors value examples with vivid hues of
deep purple, blue and green. Courtesy Christie’s
While Tiffany designed some lamps
himself, he employed many talented artists including favorite Clara Driscoll,
creator of the popular dragonfly designs and head of his Women’s Glass Cutting
Department. In 1904, The New York Daily News named her as one of the few
American women earning over $10,000 a year. Alastair Duncan illustrated the
Garden Museum example of her dragonfly and Water Lily lamp with a mosaic base,
noting that it was once owned by Barbra Streisand. Sold for $90 at the time of
its manufacture, the 16-inch lamp would have been in vogue on a writing desk or
dressing table in a well-to-do household. Although out of style by the time
Louis C. Tiffany died in 1933, the lamps almost immediately began a climb back
into fashion driven by serious dealers and collectors, a fascinating tale that
Duncan chronicles in his introductory chapter. Enthusiasts included celebrities
like Streisand, and major auction houses began to organize sales around the
lighting.
In addition to table models, Tiffany made hanging shades for
ceiling fixtures. The Neustadt collection of Tiffany Glass, New York
A detail of the Poinsettia shade,
circa 1902, reveals the subtle coloration within individual glass pieces
achieved by the firm’s artists. The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, New
York
Hugh F. McKean and his wife,
Jeannette, were among those passionate collectors and became the saviors of
architectural material from Tiffany’s estate, Laurelton Hall, now on view at
the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida. In his
book on The “Lost” Treasures of Louis Comfort Tiffany, McKean opens the chapter
on “Lamps” by writing about the artist’s love of light, color and glass: “When
all things are considered, his lamps were an inevitable development in his
career. … Lamps were one art form that offered an opportunity to satisfy all
three desires. … Obviously the shades were made on an assembly line basis, and
obviously Tiffany viewed the matter with sensible satisfaction because a lot of
beauty was going into American homes and a lot of sales were being entered in
his books.”
More lamps, windows and elements
from Laurelton Hall on Oyster Bay are on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City, Tiffany’s home base. Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, the MMA
curator of American Decorative Arts, has explored the designer’s multifaceted
creativity in Louis Comfort Tiffany at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Louis
Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist’s Country Estate. She also
contributed to another important resource for collectors, The Lamps of Louis
Comfort Tiffany.
On view elsewhere in New York are
highlights from one of the earliest modern collections of Tiffany lamps and
windows. In 1935, when less prescient collectors were occupied elsewhere, Dr.
Egon Neustadt and his wife, Hildegard, bought their first Tiffany lamp – a
Daffodil design – when it was just “secondhand,” not antique.
Lindsy Parrott, director/curator
of the Neustadt Collection, said, ”Because he started collecting so incredibly
early, at a time when these things were much more affordable, he was able to
get so many superb examples, not just lesser examples that were in his price
range. He had such incredible vision and foresight to recognize the beauty that
these works of art possessed when they were being tossed out because tastes had
changed so much. You just have to hang onto these things and be patient because
they will come back around.”
“Provenance is really becoming
more important for collectors. You want to go back as far as you possibly can –
when was it inherited, what’s the story behind it…”
Dr. Neustadt gave part of his
collection to the New-York Historical Society. A new installation of the lamps
will open in 2016, but all examples can be viewed online. The rest remain with
the Neustadt Foundation.
Parrott added, “We are a museum
but we don’t have a formal building. We have a partnership with the Queens
Museum, where we have this new gallery that opened two years ago. We’ve
reinstalled portions of the collection there and we present changing
exhibitions in that space, currently ‘Shade Garden: Floral Lamps from the
Tiffany Studios.’
Dr. Egon Neustadt and his wife,
Hildegard, were pioneering collectors of Tiffany glass. On exhibit at
Winterthur, ‘Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light’ presents five
windows and 19 lamps, including this Begonia reading lamp. The Neustadt Collection
of Tiffany Glass, New York
“Then we also share our
collection with a broader audience; these traveling exhibitions allow us to
expand the discussion beyond admiration of the individual objects and began to
talk about connoisseurship. We have this collection with such extraordinary
depth and breadth, even multiples of a single lamp design. We can really begin
to talk about what makes a good Tiffany lamp and what makes an extraordinary
Tiffany lamp.”
The latest touring exhibition,
“Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light” features 19 lamps and five
windows, on display at the Winterthur Museum through Jan. 3, 2016. A series of
lectures accompanies the exhibition, and the museum has put together a
companion show, “Tiffany: The Color of Luxury,” with objects drawn from their
own collections.
Christie’s New York has long held
the world record for a Tiffany lamp at auction. The Pink Lotus lamp sold for
$2.8 million in December 1997. The leaded glass outer shade with a continuous
frieze of water lilies is open at the top to reveal a set of eight small
Favrile glass shades within. Only three examples of the form (h. 34 3/4 inches)
are known. Carolyn Pastel, senior specialist in 20th Century Decorative Art and
Design, talked to Style Century about the current market for Tiffany lamps:
“They’re not all equal. Tiffany had a tremendous output. You have a lot of
material to potentially collect from Tiffany at various price points.”
Louis Comfort Tiffany developed
groundbreaking techniques for working and coloring glass with progressive
shading. This Magnolia window, which once graced a domestic setting, brought
$177,000 in 2012. Garden Museum Collection, Michaan’s Auctions
What determines value? She
continued: “In terms of collecting, you are looking at rarities, for sure. Top
works, such as the Wisteria lamp, are very sought after. There was definitely
limited production because it was a very difficult piece to make. Do we have
the exact number? – no, but over time you can make a general assessment of how
many were made. For the Lotus lamp, we know only a few were ever made. On the
other hand, many Dragonfly lamps were produced because that design was
tremendously popular. There are variations in the size of the shade as well as
the dragonfly.”
Good condition is important as
well. Cracks may exist, but they should not be distracting to the eye. Exact
colors vary from shade to shade, and buyers can be choosy about which hues they
prefer.
Pastel emphasizes the importance
of a lamp’s past history: “What you’re seeing now with the Tiffany market is
that provenance is really becoming more important for collectors. You want to
go back as far as you possibly can – when was it inherited, what’s the story
behind it – as many details as possible. The Lotus lamp was quite amazing, it
had been owned by the Wrigley family – that added a layer of interest and
intrigue. There is a constant flow of new interest for this icon of American
art.”
Cherished in great collections
over the past 80 years, Tiffany lamps stand poised to arouse the passions of a
millennial generation.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The
Sydney and Frances Lewis Galleries of Art Nouveau and Art Deco – Tiffany
installation Photo: Travis Fullerton
©Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Virginia Museum of Fine Arts/The Sydney and Frances Lewis Galleries of Art Nouveau and
Art Deco – Tiffany installation
Photo: Travis Fullerton ©Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
About Karla Klein Albertson : Karla Klein Albertson focuses on
the decorative arts, from excavated antiquities to contemporary pop-culture
icons. She currently writes the Ceramics Collector column and exhibition
features for Auction Central News, covers shows and auctions for the Maine
Antique Digest, and authors the Antiques column in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
She holds a master’s degree in classical archaeology from Bryn Mawr College.