This monumental vase is one of the tallest examples of blown Tiffany Glass that the gallery has handled in our 80 year history.
Measuring nearly two feet in height, the massive gourd-shaped vase is formed by opaque glass in a soft shade of turquoise and is decorated across the entire surface with a motif of swirling, coiling “vines” and large Arrowhead leaves articulated in silvery iridescent glass.
This piece is related to a series of important vases dating from the mid-1890s with a base of the same turquoise glass and decoration of silvery-blue iridescent leaves and vines. An early version donated by Henry Osborne Havemeyer to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1896 (96.17.21) is decorated with a motif of leaves and vines similar to this example, while a limited number of vases produced around 1898-1900 feature the addition of white millefiori. Louis Comfort Tiffany included a vase from this series in his display at the 1902 World’s Fair in Turin.
This exceptional piece of early Tiffany Favrile Glass is signed on the underside with date code.
Height: 21 ¼ inches (54 cm)
Diameter: 9 inches (22.9 cm)
Illustrated:
Martin Eidelberg, Tiffany Favrile Glass and the Quest of Beauty (Lillian Nassau LLC, 2007), pg. 37 fig. 43.
