Tiffany Studios

Christie's New York, December 10, 2002, lot 151

Acquired from the above by the present owner

An enormous sector of Louis Tiffany’s business model revolved around leaded-glass windows. Created in larger-than-life scale with brilliantly colored glass and innovative motifs, they were highly desired additions to innumerable churches and a large number of private homes.

Whether as a donation to an institution or for personal aggrandizement, a Tiffany window marked one as a sophisticated and knowledgeable appreciator of the arts.

Tiffany, however, was a superb marketer and was always attempting to expand his client base. There was an entire class of potential customers that existed, individuals who wanted to own stained-glass but had neither the space nor the money to purchase and install a floor-to-ceiling window. Tiffany’s solution, developed around 1899, were transparencies.

These smaller leaded-glass panels, which could be hung in front of existing windows by means of attached chains or wires, were very popular in the early 1880s as opalescent glass was first being employed in stained-glass objects. Their popularity, however, quickly faded as cheap, inartistic and poorly made windows entered the market. This soon changed after Tiffany entered the field: “Now there bids fair to be a revival of the Transparency, and one which will be something more than a fad. For the first time in many years artists are coming to turn their earnest attention to these decorations. Indeed, a Transparency is the next thing to a stained- glass window, and in miniature akin to it.” The window presented here amply displays why transparencies again became so desirable.

Flowering giant arrowheads (Sagittaria montevidensis) was an aquatic plant Tiffany’s companies frequently employed in their designs in objects ranging from lamp shades to tea services. Possibly designed by Agnes Northrop, the artist was seemingly inspired by the French artist Eugene Grasset (1845-1917). He published in 1896 La Plante et ses applications ornementales in which were printed 48 colored lithographs of flowers and floral designs, including Plate 26 that pictured stylized flowering arrowhead plants, that influenced an entire generation of artists and designers.

This transparency depicts tall, flowering arrowheads, with their trademark elongated olive, emerald and mottled green leaves and clusters of yellow-centered three-petaled white flowers, in an amber, yellow, blue and green marsh set against a swirled violet and blue sky. The lower portion of the window again demonstrates the ingenuity of Tiffany and his designers as a slender section of rippled glass wonderfully replicates the plants being partially submerged in water.

The window beautifully possesses all the traits of a superior Tiffany window in a more manageable size that would be a stunning addition in any environment. It was stained-glass panels such as this one that led one aficionado of transparencies in mentioning two “splendidly executed” examples made by Tiffany to proclaim: “Artists and amateurs will find this field a delightful one in which to exercise their talents and ingenuity, and to an end that is really worth the while attempting.”