Louis Comfort Tiffany

Private Collection, Farmington, Connecticut, 1923

Debra Force Fine Art, Inc., New York, 2007

Tiffany Studios, The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany: Retrospective Exhibition, New York, February 1916, no. 34a

Century Association, New York, April, 1925 

National Academy of Design, New York, 1926, no. 13

Tiffany’s Green Door, Algeria, Africa is similar in composition to a watercolor illustration titled The Leopard Door in Frances E. Nesbitt’s book, Algeria and Tunis (1906) and to period stereo cards and postcards, where the photographic reproductions were incorrectly identified as a door of the ancient Palace of the Dey. In fact, as noted by Nesbitt, the site was near the lighthouse (a remodeled minaret) which stood on the Peñón, a part of the marina of Algiers more familiarly called the Admiralty. Locally, the door was famous because the French did not destroy it. Displaying the old coat of arms of Algeria during Ottoman rule, this bit of architecture survived as a relic of the past.

Tiffany clearly used a commercial albumen print for reference, although the photographer is unknown. At the same time, the date on his oil painting indicates that he visited the site on February 22, 1876, and absorbed the residual color of the architecture and warm ambient light. Although his painting included several seated figures and the distinctive tall grasses captured in his photographic reference, Tiffany simplified the architectural setting to focus attention on the green door and on the play of direct and reflected light within the surrounding barrel vault.

–RAM