Tiffany Studios

Astor Galleries, New York, circa 1960

Earl and Lucille Sydnor, acquired from the above, circa 1960

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Earl and Lucille Sydnor, 1990

Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Windows, New York, 1980, p. 122 (for the present lot illustrated)

Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Louis Comfort Tiffany at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998, p. 36 (for the present lot illustrated)

Susanne Langle, et. al., Louis C. Tiffany: Meisterwerke des amerikanischen Jugendstils, Hamburg, 1999, p. 77 (for the present lot illustrated)

Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany: The Collected Works of Robert Koch, Atglen, PA, 2001, p. 65 (for the present lot illustrated)

Marilynne A. Johnson, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages, New York, 2006, p. 162 (for the present lot illustrated)

La Belle Époque, Nassau County Museum of Art, June 11, 1995–September 24, 1995

Louis Comfort Tiffany at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 23, 1998-January 31, 1999

The Quest for Beauty: L.C. Tiffany-Masterpieces of American Art Nouveau, Museum fuer Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany, March 24, 1999-June 13, 1999

Celebrating the American Wing: Notable Acquisitions, 1980–1999, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 10, 1999-November 1, 2000

Tiffany: Behind the Glass, Queens Museum of Art, October 24, 2000-February 6, 2001

Deedee Wigmore Galleries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2002-September 2005

Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages, International Exhibitions (Seattle Art Museum; The Toledo Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Carnegie Museum of Art), October 13, 2005-January 14, 2007

Engelhard Court of The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2009-August 2012

Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, October 6, 2012-May 9, 2013

Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company’s exhibition at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the event that propelled the firm to national and international prominence, almost did not come to fruition. Lacking both the required space to construct the massive exhibition, plus dealing with a strike of their male glaziers, the deadline to commit to showing at the fair was rapidly approaching. Thankfully for Louis Tiffany, the problems were resolved in time and millions of visitors viewed the Tiffany Chapel and the accompanying Light and Dark rooms.

One of the highlights of the exhibition was a stained-glass window of six Carolina parakeets, the only native American parrot, sitting and flying through a flowering tree and curiously inspecting a hanging goldfish bowl. The window, now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, is slightly over 6 feet tall and almost 4 feet wide, which would make it difficult to situate in most private residences.

The beautiful window offered here, made approximately 20 years after the aforementioned example, also depicts Carolina parakeets in a far more practical size. The two birds have bodies of yellow and green- streaked sapphire with brown-beaked and -eyed heads of yellow and green. The plumage of the wings is especially noteworthy as they are composed of finely rippled navy, teal and aquamarine glass that Tiffany usually reserved for only for the wings of angels.

Interestingly, the positioning of the birds closely mimics the one chosen by John James Audubon’s print of the parakeet, plate 26 in his Birds of America (1827-1838). Unlike Audubon, who pictured the birds in a rather barren tree after they had devoured its fruit, Tiffany has them perched in a lovely hibiscus. The variety depicted is apparently the Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus Moscheutos), which Tiffany grew on his Laurelton Hall property. The pink-centered flowers, having brown-streaked opalescent white petals, several of which are made of drapery glass, are among brown branches and emerald and yellow-green leaves, all against a mottled and streaked yellow-green background.

The window is remarkable, both for its color palette and its wonderful sensation of movement of the birds as well as the flowers. It is a supremely impressive reminder of Tiffany’s ability to create a striking and powerful image regardless of size thanks to his incomparable Favrile glass and design genius.