Pair of candlesticks with Favrile glass

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONThese are a pair of bronze Tiffany candlesticks with favrile glass decoration.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 WERE THEY MADE?These bronze candlesticks feature the use of Favrile glass. In 1894, Tiffany patented his iridescent glass under the name Favrile. The word 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. Vessels were fumed with metallic oxides to achieve iridescence.WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE THIS?Notice the sixteen iridescent balls of glass set into the open work of the base. The stems are twisted and each holds two more slightly larger iridescent balls within separated sections. At the top are two bulbous, iridescent and striated forms of glass that surround the candle cup.These bronze candlesticks with tendril-like curves and open form are typical of Tiffany’s Art Nouveau designs. 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’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, 2001.075.003 in the keyword search box.