Tiffany Studios

The Lily lamp was one of the earliest electrified lamps made by Tiffany Studios. Listed in the company’s price guides as a “Pond Lily,” it was one of Tiffany’s most popular models, assisted by the fact that it was a awarded a grand prize at the 1902 Prima Esposizionle Internatlonale d’Art Decorativa Moderna held in Turin, Italy. Unlike Tiffany’s other electric lamps with their colorful leaded glass shades, the Pond Lily incorporated multiple blown glass trumpet-shaped shades, with ruffled lower borders, that simulated the plant’s blossoms.

The vast majority of lily shades are of plain transparent yellow glass with an exterior gold iridescence. The shades for the Lily lamp offered here are very different and highly unusual. Each has a design of elongated sections of striated pale green replicating slender leaves. These sections are reactive, converting to an azure blue near the upper rims. Equally noteworthy is the actual glass used to create the shades. In this case, it is dichroic, likely created by adding colloidal copper to the batch. When seen with reflected light, the glass base layer appears a dark amber. When seen with transmitted light, the shades change to a deep, rich scarlet red. 

There has been one other known Lily lamp, an eighteen-light model, with this same type of dichroic shade.  Of the sixteen shades that were signed for that lamp, all had an “H” prefix and fourteen were numbered within the 2650 to 2688 range. The shades for this present example, based on their markings, were obviously made at the same time. It is surprising that more of these shades were not produced, but perhaps they were too expensive or too difficult to make in quantity. In any case, they create a superlative effect and greatly enhance the lamp’s overall appeal.

—Paul Doros