1957.43: Floriform Vase
VesselsThis 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
View this object's location on our interactive map
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