Vase 1893 - 1896

This glass vase was made in America by Louis Comfort Tiffany, most likely in the late 19th or early 20th century. Tiffany was heir to the famous jewelry firm, and he also sought to establish himself in the fine arts. He’s best known for stained glass, but here he uses glass as a canvas for painterly effects. Tiffany's ambition was to elevate craft to the level of fine art, which was very much in the spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement. The movement opposed industrial manufacturing, preferring handcraft and traditional methods of production. Here, he revives and perfects the ancient glass-blowing techniques to create complex iridescent surfaces. To understand the vase more fully, scholars have looked at the cultural climate of the Gilded Age, the politics of the Arts and Crafts movement, and the history of museum collecting at the turn of the century. Approaching art in this way makes its cultural work so much richer.