Tiffany Studios

Kennard Skilling, Philadelphia, until 1963

Freeman's, Philadelphia, May 6-8, 1963

Lillian Nassau Gallery, New York

Frank and Ruth Stanton, acquired from the above

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Ruth and Frank Stanton, 1978

Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Windows, New York, 1981, p. 122, pl. 99 (for the present lot illustrated)

Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Louis Comfort Tiffany at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998, pp. 37-38, 40 and 97 (for the present lot illustrated)

Rudiger Joppien, Louis C. Tiffany, Meisterwerke des americanischen 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)

Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Cologne, 2004, p. 118 (for the present lot illustrated)

Marilynn A. Johnson, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages, London, 2005, p. 162 (for the present lot illustrated)

Engelhard Court of The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1978-2024

…It is evident that the glassmakers’ art has come to stay, that its lines of development among us are legitimate, artistic and full of promise.

Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1898

Louis Tiffany’s confidence in the artistic and commercial rise of the American stained-glass industry would have been considered almost laughable a mere 20 years earlier. Although an industry on the cusp of success due to the rapid increase in the number of religious edifices, the glass available was a definite roadblock in advancing the art: the colors were rudimentary at best, the quality uneven and the designs based on the European motifs of the Middle Ages. All that was revolutionized with the advent of opalescent glass and, more specifically, the introduction of Tiffany’s Favrile glass in 1893, which he described 8 years later, with typical entrepreneurial bravado, as “the most important discovery made this century in the arts.”

Although not a scientist, Tiffany was well versed in the chemistry behind glassmaking and spent considerable time examining the subject: “I have been studying the effects of different glasses to accomplish perspective, and effects of colors of different textures, of opaque and transparent, of lustrous and non-lustrous, of absorbing and reflecting glasses.” This long period of study, along with the assistance of Arthur Nash, the superintendent of his newly-founded glasshouse in Corona, Queens, resulted in the development of an opalescent glass that could be created in an almost unlimited range of colors and textures. This material, in the hands of Tiffany’s designers and artisans and under his guidance, permitted the creation of leaded-glass windows unlike any the world had ever seen. The window offered here is a superb example of what the firm was capable of producing at its height.

The vertical panel presents large grape leaves in a wide spectrum of greens tinged with purple, blue and pink attached to curvaceous vines, some composed of brown glass, others of tooled lead. These vines twist under, over and around the white-streaked yellow trellis giving an addirtional sense of dimensionality. The use of a trellis in the design was a feature of many Tiffany leaded glass windows as well as lamp shades. Not only did the latticework provide additional structural strength, it also had a religious significance, as St. John of the Cross compared the spiritual disciplines to a trellis that supported a growing grapevine. Trellises were also widely depicted in Japanese woodblock prints and other mediums. Tiffany, an advanced collector of Asian art and artifacts, was undoubtedly familiar with the theme.

Hanging pendant from the vines are clusters of rich and vibrant grapes. Instead of molding the cluster in its entirety, blue, cobalt, navy and purple spheres were individually leaded together in high relief. Grapes were a common theme in many of Tiffany’s ecclesiastical windows, the fruit representing the words from Scriptures: “I am the true vine, you are the branches.” It was an equally appropriate theme for domestic windows, as grapes symbolize abundance and prosperity. They were significant components of the August Heckscher commission completed around 1905, as well as windows made for the mansion of Mary Garrett in 1885, George Kemp in 1891 and Mrs. Russell Sage in 1909. In this example, however, grapes are the only fruit featured.

In many ways, the window, with its grapevine design, the sinuous, almost whiplash, vines and the obviously strong influences of Japonisme, might be seen as epitomizing the ideals of the Art Nouveau movement. The panel has, however, been proven to adapt to the most modern of decorative schemes. This window and its matching companion were previously owned by Frank Stanton (1908-2006), who would eventually donate both of them to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1978. Stanton, president of CBS from 1946 to 1971, had his office in the Eero Saarinen- designed corporate headquarters on West 52nd Street that is better known as Black Rock.

Florence Knoll became responsible for the interior design and furnishings of the skyscraper after Saarinen’s death in 1961. Although Knoll was known as a modernist, favoring simple, clean forms and neutral colors, she occasionally began to introduce historical elements later in her career. This is especially true of Frank Stanton’s private dining room, a part of his office suite on the 35th floor, where Knoll adventurously decided to install this grapevine window and its mate

Louis Tiffany succinctly expressed the foundation of his artistic belief in the latter part of his life: “We must have a combination of the physical and mental in a fine decoration––the objective and the subjective must be married and intimately blended by the subtle implement of color, as the composer employs the moods of music.” Taken in its entirety, this subtle yet vivacious grapevine window must be recognized as the virtuoso performance it truly is.