Tiffany Studios

Macklowe Gallery, New York, 1981

Paul E. Doros, The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, 2013, pp. 41 and 194 (for the present lot illustrated)

Louis Tiffany traveled extensively and made relatively frequent visits to the Middle East. These trips influenced his aesthetics in numerous ways, including some of the shapes utilized by his glasshouse. This is particularly evident in the Favrile vases that are today referred to as Goosenecks.

Silver rosewater sprinklers in this form first appeared in India during the 16th century. The model was produced in both silver and glass extensively throughout Persia 300 years later and it is extremely likely that Tiffany was familiar with these later examples through his travels. One of the earliest reviews of his Favrile blown glass that appeared in the July 1894 edition of The Art Amateur commented that “his work in this line is much superior to that now produced in Venice, and is, in our opinion, equal to the best ancient Venetian or Persian glass.” But while the Persians generally made their vases in basic transparent colored glass, those made by Tiffany Studios were generally opaque with an applied iridescence, a tooled decoration, or both.

The vase offered here is one of the finest examples ever offered at auction. With its curvaceous neck and pointed oval rim, the opaque white glass is beautifully decorated with a delicate design in shades of green and iridescent gold that replicates a bird’s ornate plumage. Deceptively simple in appearance, this specimen of Tiffany’s rosewater sprinkler required all of the glassblower’s skills and this, together with the fragility of the slender neck, probably accounts for the relative rarity of the model.

-PD