Tiffany Studios New York Copper and Enamel "Milkweed" Vase

$57,500

This Tiffany Furnaces enamel "Milkweed" vase features a delicate frieze of pink milkweed blossoms set against an iridescent gold ground, their softly modeled petals contrasting with a band of broad, dark green leaves encircling the collar. The motif carries personal and ecological resonance: milkweed—a native North American plant once cultivated in Tiffany’s grandmother’s garden—was cherished for its beauty and its power to attract monarch butterflies. Essential to the monarch’s life cycle, milkweed serves as the only host on which the butterflies lay their eggs, and its leaves provide the sole nourishment for their caterpillars, symbolizing the interdependence of art and nature that lay at the heart of Tiffany’s creative vision.
Category: Metalwork New Acquisitions Tiffany Objects Tiffany Studios New York
Product Details

Item #: T-22247
Artist: Tiffany Studios New York
Country: United States
Circa: 1898-1899
Dimensions: 8.75" height, 7" diameter.
Materials: Copper, Enamel
Signed: "SG 139" (for Stourbridge Glass Company, Tiffany's enamelware Division)

Item #: T-22247
Artist: Tiffany Studios New York
Country: United States
Circa: 1898-1899
Dimensions: 8.75" height, 7" diameter.
Materials: Copper, Enamel
Signed: "SG 139" (for Stourbridge Glass Company, Tiffany's enamelware Division)

Curator's Notes
In an interview for Town & Country magazine, Louis Comfort Tiffany compared his enameled vases against sapphire, topaz, opal, aquamarine, and other stones, concluding that enamels "showed much more depth and perspective than were found in the stones," an insight sensitively demonstrated in this monumental and masterful vase. Tiffany took a painterly, impressionist approach to his enamel work, in intentional contrast to renowned Japonesque and Renaissance Revival masters like Eugene Richet (enamel master for the house of Fontenay), Antoine Tard (enamel master for the house of Falize), and Paul Briançon (House of René Lalique). Much in the way that Tiffany used gemstones in his early jewels as mere means to achieve color effects and momentary impressions of nature, here, his use of opulent, varicolored enamel expresses Kalamata olives in the peak of their ripeness against the golden Mediterranean sky.
In an interview for Town & Country magazine, Louis Comfort Tiffany compared his enameled vases against sapphire, topaz, opal, aquamarine, and other stones, concluding that enamels "showed much more depth and perspective than were found in the stones," an insight sensitively demonstrated in this monumental and masterful vase. Tiffany took a painterly, impressionist approach to his enamel work, in intentional contrast to renowned Japonesque and Renaissance Revival masters like Eugene Richet (enamel master for the house of Fontenay), Antoine Tard (enamel master for the house of Falize), and Paul Briançon (House of René Lalique). Much in the way that Tiffany used gemstones in his early jewels as mere means to achieve color effects and momentary impressions of nature, here, his use of opulent, varicolored enamel expresses Kalamata olives in the peak of their ripeness against the golden Mediterranean sky.
Tiffany Objects

Tiffany Objects

 Browse the Collection
Tiffany Lamps

Tiffany Lamps

 Browse the Collection
Jewelry

Jewelry

 Browse the Collection