Feature image: Tiffany lamps via Christie's
Tiffany Studios and Its “Million Dollar” Lamps
To a certain extent, carefully crafted luxury goods embody the characteristics of fine art. The attention to detail is akin to the meticulous hours a painter dedicates to a piece of art. Whether it is an exquisite Hermès Birken bag or a Carl Hansen & Søn teak wood dining table, this genre of art undeniably requires a prolific skillset, warranting its healthy price tag.
Louis Comfort Tiffany, founder of Tiffany Studios, approached luxury home goods with the same viewpoint. Growing up with the founder of Tiffany & Co. as your father inevitably curates a fascination with such lavish goods. Although the beginning of Louis C. Comfort’s original intentions were not mind-boggling expensive lamps, his career genesis still involved creating high-quality products.
After developing a love for painting and briefly dabbling in a painting career, Tiffany sought to start a glassmaking company. In the late 1870s, he launched a luxury wallpaper, tile, and furniture company called Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists. Around this time, Tiffany was hired by historical figures like Mark Twain to decorate their homes with only the finest materials. Four years after opening his business, Tiffany closed the business.
Nonetheless, Tiffany persisted in pursuing his artisanal dreams. In the 1890s, Tiffany began planning what we know today as Tiffany Studios. By 1900, Tiffany launched Tiffany Studios and was entirely dedicated to commercially producing stained glass lamps.
Despite his success, reputation, and creative director title, Louis C. Tiffany wasn’t the sole inventor behind the company’s iconic lamp designs, such as Dragonfly and Wisteria.
The Tiffany Girls
Tiffany employed many women he treated fairly, especially in the early 1900s. He even paid them similarly to his male workers, which is rarely seen today. Tiffany Studios’ top female employee, Clara Driscoll, made approximately $45,000 in today’s dollars, comparable to the salary of most men working at the company. Tiffany believed women had a different interpretation of color than men. Thus, he left most of the ideas and construction to his most trusted female workers, the Tiffany Girls.
Clara Driscoll, the Head of Tiffany Studios’ Women’s Glass Cutting Department, contributed to some of the company’s most iconic designs. Driscoll’s collaboration with the other Tiffany Girls became so successful that the male unionized workers demanded Driscoll’s department be shut down. Although the Tiffany Girls continued thriving in their department, Tiffany Studios adhered to the union’s demands; the company placed restrictions on Driscoll’s group, limiting the number of employees she could have in her department.
What started as a small team of eight women later transformed into a team of 30 talented women working under Driscoll. Despite Tiffany’s modern approach to hiring women and equal pay, he managed to leave room for misogyny. Tiffany welcomed women into his workplace and admired all the work they accomplished. However, there was a stipulation that the women had to be unmarried. Once they were engaged and eventually wed, the female workers were required to leave the company; even Clara Driscoll left Tiffany Studios several times due to her marital status.
The Rise of the Tiffany-Style Lamp
When Tiffany Studios began to see an extreme increase in popularity with stained glass lamps, the company capitalized on such demand. It started making other luxury goods like clocks, vases, and inkstands. However, with any success and a pretty price tag comes the inevitable look-a-like and “dupe.”
While the price tag is the leading factor for a genuine Tiffany lamp, it is also due to how saturated the stained glass lamp market is. Once other companies saw how marketable stained glass lamps are and how many people want but cannot afford a Tiffany Studios lamp, they jumped on the opportunity to create something similar but more obtainable.
In the early to mid-1900s, companies like Duffner and Kimberly Lamps and Chandeliers started selling remarkably similar stained glass lamps but with cheaper materials and a realistic price tag. Although these dupes are not a quick $50 like the ones we see on Amazon and Facebook Marketplace, the Duffner and Kimberly stained glass lamps sold for just over $1,000 for a floor lamp. Such techniques can involve high-quality color plastic or hand-painted glass.
Over the decades, over-consumption and mass production in foreign countries have lowered prices but also immensely lowered quality. Anyone can achieve the Tiffany aesthetic by visiting a garage sale or thrift store, quickly searching on Facebook Marketplace, or browsing the Internet.
Off-brand Tiffany lamp manufacturers increasingly achieve a look and feel similar to a genuine Tiffany Studios lamp. From the brass base to the soldered mosaic glass, comparing the Tiffany-style and original Tiffany lamps is uncanny.
Inspecting the wiring, stamped label, and base is the key to accurately identifying an authentic Tiffany lamp. A genuine Tiffany Studios stained glass lamp is heavy, with a bronze base and heavy metal ring on the bottom. Most original lamps are at least 100 years old, making authentic Tiffany lamps delicate with possible broken or loose pieces.
The Legacy of Tiffany Lamps
While a lamp may not be the first form of art that comes to mind, the craftsmanship and talent required to construct a Tiffany lamp are close to the typical artist. The lamps’ ambiance radiates a warm, colorful light, perfect for a library, cafe, or restaurant. If there is a Tiffany lamp in a public space with lots of traffic, it is likely not a true Tiffany. Regardless of its authenticity, a Tiffany-style lamp is timeless and emits a level of elegance almost anyone can achieve.
