Tiffany Studios

Louis Comfort Tiffany, Laurelton Hall, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island

Sotheby's Parke Bernet, Paintings Antiquities Decorations Belonging to the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Removed from Laurelton Hall, Cold Spring Harbor, L.I., September 24, 1946, lot 316

Private Collection

Christie's New York, March 30, 1985, lot 387

Wolf Family Collection No. 0789 (acquired from the above)

A VISION OF DELIGHT: LOUIS C. TIFFANY’S “HYACINTH BEAN” ENAMELED TRAY

The “Hyacinth Bean” Tray from the Wolf Family Collection is an incredible example of Tiffany’s artistic virtuosity in enamel. Beginning with his initial foray into the creation of leaded glass windows in the early 1880s, Louis C. Tiffany was familiar with enamels but engaged sparingly with the medium. Other window manufacturers in the period were largely dependent on opaque enamel paints to enhance and embellish their designs. To Tiffany, this technique was counter-intuitive, as he thought the light streaming through the windows should be unimpaired to the highest degree possible. He preferred instead to be wholly dependent upon his newly-developed opalescent glass and resort to enamels only to delineate fine details such as faces, hands and feet. As the end of the century approached, however, Tiffany’s attitude toward enamels and their possibilities shifted.

Tiffany was an advanced collector of Asian decorative arts and was likely influenced by the widely available enamel work being produced in Japan. The decorative technique was probably begun in China, and Japanese craftsmen mastered the art by the late 16^th century, using it primarily as an accent to architectural elements and small household objects. The samurai also created a demand for enameled sword fittings, especially tsuba, or sword guards, of which Tiffany had hundreds in his personal collection at Laurelton Hall.

The craft in Japan gradually declined but was revived in the mid-1850s as European techniques were incorporated and adapted, and the period between 1880 and 1910 is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of Japanese enamels. Numerous pieces received awards at several international exhibitions, beginning with Vienna in 1873 and Philadelphia in 1876, and were featured in the country’s pavilion at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

The demand for these Japanese enamels subsequently became enormous in Europe and the United States, and it is not surprising that Tiffany, being a brilliant marketer, decided to enter the field. Enamel proved to be an ideal medium to express his aesthetics. Furthermore, he had a practically limitless supply of the key ingredient, powdered glass, in almost any imaginable color readily available from his glass factory in Corona, New York.

Tiffany began exploring the possibility for his company to produce enameled objects with the assistance of his chief chemist, Dr. Parker McIlhiney, and four of the so-called “Tiffany Girls:” Alice Gouvy, Julia Munson, Lillian Palmié and Patricia Gay. Together, they developed an iridescent and, more significantly, a translucent enamel that allowed hints of the copper body to be seen through the enamel. In addition, many of the pieces employed repoussé, which enhanced the three-dimensionality of the design. Ever the innovator, Tiffany generally eschewed the standard Japanese practice of cloisonné. This method involved the application of fine wires to the copper body in order to delineate the design. The cloisons prevented the molten glass paste from running haphazardly, but they also inhibited the free, naturalistic motifs that Tiffany aspired to achieve.

The first public mention connecting Tiffany with enamelware appeared in October 1899, when a newspaper article related that Miss Elizabeth Willmarth, “a clever Chicago girl,” was to head a department at the firm investigating iridescent enameling. She was quoted as enthusiastically saying, “It is most fascinating work under the most favorable and artistic surroundings. Nothing takes too long, costs too much or is too much trouble to produce.” No enameled objects were ready in time for Tiffany’s first major international exhibition organized by Siegfried Bing at the Grafton Galleries in London in July 1899, but a sufficient number of exemplary articles were prepared for the following year’s Exposition Universelle in Paris, where the enameled pieces were universally acclaimed and earned Tiffany a Grand Prix: “They are evidently not such as can be turned out by the mere clever workman, but show the creative mind of the artist. In awarding them the Grand Prix, the jury has marked its sense of their supreme excellence.”

One of the highlights in Tiffany’s booth at the Paris fair, the present enameled tray from the Wolf Family Collection is perhaps the finest and most artistic example of enamel ever produced by the company. Interestingly, the flower depicted has been misinterpreted for the past 75 years. When the piece was offered at Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet’s historic auction of the contents of Louis Tiffany’s Long Island mansion, Laurelton Hall, in 1946, it was cataloged as “in the form of a huge half-pear, molded with flowering branches and pear stems, on a brilliant green and gold ground,” and sold for a mere $70. The object was later described as the “Gourd” tray when displayed at the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art in 1990 and again as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s landmark exhibition Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall, held between November 2006 and May 2007.

In actuality, the plant so magnificently depicted is the hyacinth bean (Dolichos Lablab). Also known as the Egyptian bean, the species is native to Africa where, as an annual, the leaves and legume pods serve as a source of food. The hyacinth bean in Europe and North America is more frequently cultivated as an ornamental perennial vine. It was introduced by American nurserymen in the early 19^th century and was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson’s at Monticello, where an entire arbor was dedicated to it. Tiffany was equally familiar with the plant, as there is a record of the vine being propagated on the Laurelton Hall grounds.

Tiffany’s artistic genius is readily apparent in every facet of the tray. The shape of the object, which upon initial inspection might give the impression of a painter’s palette, actually replicates one of the bean pods, with its short, curved stem, waisted oval form and sinuous upturned tip. After its formation, the body was given an ornate repoussé design in various stages of relief, enhancing its depth and naturalism. Finally came the time-consuming task of enameling, which involved multiple firings. This was a risky process, as the chance of the enamels dripping and running was considerable, but it permitted Tiffany to be the only manufacturer in the world capable of creating a shimmering translucency as is so beautifully illustrated by this example. A contemporary critic extolled, “There are colors which represent several applications, firing after firing until a depth and luminosity is reached for which there is no known comparison. There are tones of colors that cannot be found elsewhere—visions of delight.”

As he did in many of his enameled works, Tiffany exhibits the plant in all stages of growth. On the right is the hyacinth as it would appear in the spring, with racemes of small pink and lavender flower blossoms as well as newly formed golden-brown and maroon pods pendant from two plum-colored branches. To the left of these is a larger branch with numerous mature bean pods executed in crimson, ruby and purple, which pop among the leaves articulated in various shades of green. All of these elements are set against a glistening green-mottled yellow-gold ground that imbue the piece with warmth. Completing the highly naturalistic design, even the reverse is enameled in a lovely moss green-speckled golden peach.

It is estimated that Tiffany Studios produced only 600 pieces of enamel, of which this tray was probably Louis Tiffany’s personal favorite. He selected it to be shown at both the 1900 Exposition Universelle and the Pan-American Exposition held in Buffalo, New York the following year. Instead of selling the object during those exhibitions, as was frequently the case, Tiffany kept it and eventually brought it home to Laurelton Hall to admire among his other treasures. Both he and his foundation donated a number of enamels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1920s, but Tiffany decided not to include the tray in any of those groupings and again kept it, demonstrating its lasting value to him. One can understand his adulation after careful examination of this superb masterpiece. As one critic proclaimed in 1903, “These rare works of genius are of such recent creation that few know much about them. At the Paris Exposition they startled the art world by their presence, and won universal admiration. They are gems for collectors to possess, for all art lovers to become familiar with. This masterful artist so prizes one small specimen that he sets it apart as beyond price. The wealth of the Indies he would refuse for it.”

PAUL E. DOROS