Jack-in-the-pulpit vase

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONThis is a blue iridescent glass vase with oversize flaring mouth, slim twisted stem and bulbous bottom.WHERE WAS IT MADE?Tiffany glass was made at the Tiffany Glass Furnaces in Corona, located in Queens, New York.WHO WAS THE ARTIST?Louis Comfort Tiffany was the eldest son of Charles L. Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Company, the New York jeweler. Tiffany was trained as a painter, studying with both George Inness and Samuel Coleman in New York and Leon Bailly in Paris. He eventually turned his attention to decorative arts and began experimenting with glass-making techniques in 1875. After success with stained glass windows and mosaics, Tiffany established the Tiffany Glass Company in 1885 and began devoting production to one-of-a-kind blown glass art objects. He soon became one of America’s most prolific designers, providing furniture, wallcoverings, textiles, jewelry and glass to some of society’s most important citizens.HOW WAS IT MADE?This vase was made by blowing glass on a blowpipe.The iridescence on this vase is a decorative effect achieved by introducing metallic substances into the batch or by spraying the surface of the vessel with oxides like stannous chloride or lead chloride and then reheating it in a reduced atmosphere. Ancient glass often has an iridescent appearance caused by the effects of weathering.WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE THIS?This vase is an example of Tiffany’s Favrile glass. Favrile is derived from the Old English fabrile, meaning hand wrought. Inspired by glass from ancient Rome and the Islamic world, Venice and Bohemia, Tiffany glassmakers copied many of the colors, texture, decoration and unique forms made long ago. Tiffany combined his talent as a colorist, naturalist, and designer with his experimentations on blown glass surfaces. To see other examples of Tiffany’s Favrile glass in the Johnson Museum’s collection, search for object numbers 57.072, 57.080, 57.088, 57.097, 57.106, 64.0840, 64.0841, 64.0842, 64.0843, 64.0850, 64.0865, 64.0875, 64.0879, 64.0885, 64.0889, 64.0898, 64.0904, 99.078.118 a,b, and 2001.075.003 in the keyword search box.The organic, fluid shape of this vase is typical of Tiffany’s Art Nouveau style objects. Inspired by the woodland flower known as the Jack-in-the-Pulpit, this vase became one of Tiffany & Co.’s signature pieces. Click here to see a photograph of a jack-in-the-pulpit.Art Nouveau, French for “New Art,” refers to an artistic style that was developed in Europe in the 1880s, and remained enormously popular into the first decade of the 20th century. It is characterized by whiplash curves, organic imagery and sinuous lines. The name Art Nouveau came from the Paris shop of Siegfried Bing that opened in 1895, quickly popularizing the works of artists like Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose work became synonymous with (or symbolic of) the American Art Nouveau style.To see other examples of Tiffany floriform vases in the Johnson Museum’s collection, search for object numbers 64.0881 and 64.0836 in the keyword search box.