Vase, with Leaf Design

Louis Comfort Tiffany was the eldest son of Charles Tiffany, founder of Tiffany and Company in New York. He was trained as a painter but eventually turned his attention to the decorative arts and began experimenting with glassmaking techniques in 1875. His early success with stained glass windows and mosaics led to the establishment of the Tiffany Glass Company in 1885. Tiffany called his glassware Favrile, derived from the Old English word “fabrile,” meaning handmade; it was created in the Art Nouveau style, a fusion of classical shapes and organic forms punctuated with sinuous, asymmetrical embellishments. An instant sensation, it was actively sought by both museums and private collectors. With his innovations in glass as well as in furniture design, ceramics, jewelry and metalwork, Tiffany became a major force in the popularization of the Art Nouveau style in the United States. Two important gifts make up the nucleus of the Tiffany glass collection at the Johnson Museum: A. Douglas Nash, son of Tiffany’s manager Arthur Nash, gave a study group in 1957, which was enhanced in 1964 with the Edythe de Lorenzi collection, bequeathed by her husband, Otto de Lorenzi. (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)