Vase

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONThis is a tall Tiffany opalescent glass vase with “vaseline” glaze and a marbleized effect running throughout.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 initial form of this vase was made on a blowpipe using many layers of glass, with thin glass threads in between them. After it was blown, it was annealed (cooled slowly). Then a rotating stone cutting wheel, along with abrasives and water, was used to shape the outer facets. This vase is made from a kind of glass called Agate or Calcedonio glass, Italian for Chalcedony. Calcedonio is glass that is marbled with brown, blue, green or yellow swirls in order to imitate chalcedony and other semiprecious stones. Calcedonio was first manufactured in Venice in the late 15th century.There is also an opalescence to the creamy background. Opalescent glass is a type of 19th century glass made by covering a gather of colored glass with a layer of colorless glass containing bone ash and arsenic or the mineral cryolite, from Greenland.