This "Cancer" Panel was originally installed in the Grill Room on the sixth floor of the Marshall Field & Company "Store for Men."
Marshall Field's in Chicago was one of the most important luxury retailers in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The department store was one of a select few with which Louis Comfort Tiffany established a business partnership; Marshall Field’s was an official retailer of Tiffany Studios products and was prominently listed in Tiffany’s advertisements. Tiffany Studios was commissioned in 1907 to decorate the interior of a new extension of Marshall Field’s main Chicago store. The resulting 6,000 square-foot Tiffany Favrile Glass Mosaic ceiling is one of Tiffany Studios’ most important masterpieces and a rare survivor of the company’s architectural ornament.
In 1914 Tiffany Studios was again commissioned by Marshall Field’s to decorate the Grill Room on the sixth floor of the “Store For Men,” a new annex building. The Grill Room featured a massive domed ceiling of leaded Tiffany Glass and tiered Favrile Glass Mosaic fountain.
A series of monumental mahogany columns were topped with capitals featuring rectangular Favrile Glass Mosaic panels depicting the twelve signs of the zodiac. The deeply saturated Tiffany Glass in shades of purple and blue used in these mosaics harmonized with the overall design of the interior, while the brilliance of the iridescence would have caught the eye from around the room.
Though the original Marshall Field building is a National Historic Landmark, the company sold the annex building housing the Men’s Grill Room in 1981. A small number of "Zodiac" panels were salvaged from the Men’s Grill Room; the ceiling and fountain were lost.
Favrile glass tesserae, plaster
16 ½” high, 12 ¼” wide (41.9 x 31.1 cm)
References:
K. Conway and L. Parrott, Tiffany's Glass Mosaics, Corning, NY, 2017, 216-217
United States Economist and Dry Goods Reporter. United States, J. Mackey., May 9, 1914.