Dragonflies and Water Flowers, the reading lamp Clara Driscoll designed in 1899, at the Corning Museum of Glass. Photo Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tiffany lamps
What it took directly
- documentedThe Tiffany lamp comes from Tiffany's Women's Glass Cutting Department, in the late 1890s"was not conceptualized until the late 1890s, when inspiration would strike in the Women's Glass Cutting Department" Lillian Nassau gallery, "The First Tiffany Lamps"
- statedThe Dragonfly lamp took from an idea Clara Driscoll had "last summer", which Alice Gouvy worked out on a plaster mould"This Dragonfly lamp is an idea that I had last summer and which Alice [Gouvy] worked out on a plaster mould." Clara Driscoll, letter to her family, April 6, 1899 (transcribed by the Lillian Nassau gallery)
- documentedThe floral Tiffany lampshade comes from Clara Driscoll, credited with virtually all of the floral and nature-themed shades"The idea that really a single woman was responsible for virtually all of the floral-themed, the nature themed shades, is really turning around Tiffany scholarship" Margi Hofer, curator at the New York Historical Society, to CBS News (2007)
- documentedThe Tiffany lamp comes from women industrial artists, as Clara Driscoll's letters, found in 2005, showed"Because of the 2005 discovery of a collection of Clara’s letters home, we now know that lampshades were designed and executed by women industrial artists." Renée M. Sentilles, for the Cleveland Museum of Art (2020)
What it learned to do
- documentedEach Tiffany shade learned from the hands of roughly a dozen craftspeople, men and women, from design to glass selection"From inception to completion, each shade passed through the hands of roughly a dozen different craftspeople, both men and women, and was a unique creation thanks to the individualized process of glass selection." The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, "Making a Tiffany Lamp"
- documentedThe Tiffany lamp learned from copper foil: every cut piece of glass edged in foil, then soldered on a mould"Once the cutting was complete, the edges of each piece of glass were wrapped in thin strips of copper foil, with a slight overlap on the front and back." The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, "Making a Tiffany Lamp"
- documentedThe Tiffany lamp learned from colour carried in the glass itself rather than painted on"The color was in the glass itself, not painted on. That was an innovation that made Tiffany glass world-famous." CBS News Sunday Morning (Caitlin Johnson, 2007)
- documentedClara Driscoll learned from the Cleveland Institute of Art, which the museum names as her school"This exhibition also highlights Ohio native and CIA graduate Clara Driscoll" Cleveland Museum of Art, introducing its Tiffany in Bloom exhibition (2020)
- inferredThe Tiffany lamp comes from a union compromise that kept Tiffany's women artists on lampshades and small goods"Tiffany and the union reached a compromise by capping the number of female employees at 27 and consigning the women to creating lampshades and “small luxury goods,” which were mostly desk items." inferred — the Cleveland Museum of Art records the compromise; that it steered the women's talent into the lamps we know is our reading
The tradition it sits in
- documentedThe Tiffany lamp comes from Louis Comfort Tiffany's glass light fixtures for the Lyceum Theater, made with Thomas Edison in the mid-1880s"Louis Comfort Tiffany first designed lighting fixtures utilizing glass in the mid-1880s when he was commissioned to design the interior of the Lyceum Theater in New York City, for which he collaborated with Thomas Alva Edison" Lillian Nassau gallery, "The First Tiffany Lamps"
- statedThe Tiffany-style lamp in American bars comes from Alan Stillman's T.G.I. Friday's, hung with "fake Tiffany lamps""All I really did was throw sawdust on the floor and hang up fake Tiffany lamps." Alan Stillman, to Edible Geography (2010), quoted by Collectors Weekly
- statedFriday's reproduction Tiffany-style lamps took from high-end studios hired to copy them once antique stained glass ran short"The stained glass market started drying up, so we hired high-end studios and had them copy Tiffany-style lamps and window panels." Dan Scoggin, who grew the Friday's chain, to Collectors Weekly (Lisa Hix, 2016)
- documentedThe store-bought Wisteria knockoff comes from Clara Driscoll's Wisteria lampshade"Her Wisteria lampshade alone is still so beloved that one can now buy knockoffs from numerous vendors, including Home Depot." Renée M. Sentilles, for the Cleveland Museum of Art (2020)
Where the whole form comes from
- documentedThe Tiffany lamp comes from the stained and leaded glass windows Tiffany's workshops made for clients' houses"His workshops began designing pretty much anything Tiffany put in a client's house, including stained and leaded glass windows and lamps." CBS News Sunday Morning (Caitlin Johnson, 2007)
- documentedClara Driscoll comes from the "New Woman" of the Progressive period, 1880–1920"She embodied what became known as a “New Woman” or “modern girl,” terms adopted in the Progressive period (1880–1920) to designate women actively participating in urban life." Renée M. Sentilles, historian, for the Cleveland Museum of Art (2020)
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