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Orange and green flower-shaped glass vase

This glass vase has a round, domed orange base that appears iridescent. Petal-shaped points of green pigment radiate from the base’s center, which attaches to a tall, thin, medium-green “stem.” The stem is translucent with a striated pattern. It has a small area in the center that is thicker than the top and bottom. The top flares into a delicate, translucent cup-shaped flower with an irregular, curved top edge. It is colored with swirls of green, orange, and lilac pigment. The top edge of the flower is less pigmented and has a bumpy texture that refracts light.

Gallery Text

Tiffany’s naturalistic art glass catered to elite Americans’ taste for singular, handmade objects. With their asymmetrical, organic forms and unevenly distributed colors, these works stand in stark contrast to the more uniform, mass-produced goods that proliferated at the turn of the nineteenth century. A skillful marketer, Tiffany branded his glass “favrile,” a loose adaption of the Old English word “fabrille” or “hand wrought.”

Tiffany employed teams of skilled artisans at his glassworks in Corona, New York, to transform his sketched designs into three-dimensional objects. Producing the multicolored surfaces of these vases required manual dexterity and a working knowledge of chemistry. The artisans incorporated colored canes, or rods, into the glass when it was still hot and malleable and then treated the glass with metal oxides to give each form a striking iridescent finish.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1957.43
People
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, American (1892-1902)
Title
Floriform Vase
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
c. 1900
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228495

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2100, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Centuries of Tradition, Changing Times: Art for an Uncertain Age
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Glass with applied colors
Dimensions
40.6 x 15.9 cm (16 x 6 1/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Gift of Murray Anthony and Bessie Lincoln Potter, 1957.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Murray Anthony and Bessie Lincoln Potter
Accession Year
1957
Object Number
1957.43
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Christopher Reed, "Out of Place? An Exhibition Asks the Meaning of Things", Harvard Magazine (March-April 2011), 113, no. 4, ill. p. 68
  • Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Ivan Gaskell, Sara Schechner, and Sarah Anne Carter, Tangible Things: Making History through Objects, Oxford University Press (NY) (New York, 2015), pp. 121-122, repr. p. 121 in fig. 93, and on p. 122 as fig. 94

Exhibition History

  • The Persistence of Memory: Continuity and Change in American Cultures, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/29/1995 - 05/13/2001
  • Tangible Things, Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, 01/24/2011 - 05/29/2011
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu