AFA Autumn 2019

Autumn 66 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com TIFFANY STUDIOS Inspired by forms in nature as well as by art from around the world, Tiffany worked in a wide range of materials. His firm, Tiffany Studios, employed designers and craftspeople to realize his artistic goals, producing leaded-glass windows, lamps, blown-glass vessels, and other decorative art objects. Clara Driscoll, one of several key female designers at the firm, created the Dragonfly Lamp (Fig. 5), which won a bronze medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle and became one of Tiffany Studios’ best-selling lamps. Ecclesiastical work formed an important part of Tiffany Studios’ business, as families and congregations across America commissioned leaded-glass windows for churches and sacred spaces. The Tiffany family’s long history in Connecticut gave locals added reason to commission Tiffany windows. The three newly conserved leaded-glass windows on view in the Lyman Allyn’s gallery originated with New London families who had ties to the Tiffany Mitchells. The Tiffany Come Unto Me window (Fig. 6) was acquired by the museum from New London’s All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in 2014, after the church had outgrown their original building. The congregation worked with the museum to facilitate the transfer and preserve the window for the local community. The window contains various elements that Tiffany Studios used to make their windows dynamic and expressive, including rippled glass to represent water and specialty foliage glass to mimic the look of light filtering through leaves. Tiffany Studios’ Saint Cecilia window (Fig. 7) and J. & R. Lamb Studio’s River of Life window, also in the exhibit, both circa 1917, come from the Frank Loomis Palmer mausoleum in New London’s Cedar Grove Cemetery. Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music and musicians, ascends to heaven holding a portative organ. The River of Life window was stolen from the mausoleum in 1991, but was later recovered and returned, having sustained some damage. Both windows remained in storage for many years but Fig. 3: Mitchell Beach, New London, 1885. Photograph. Alfred Mitchell on horseback with his daughters, Alfreda and Charly (in hats), and Louis Comfort Tiffany’s daughter, May. Courtesy of Mitchell College Archives. Fig. 4: Vase, Tiffany Studios, New York, ca. 1905. Glass, H. 11¼, Diam. 4½ in. Lyman Allyn Art Museum; Gift of Alfreda Mitchell Bingham Gregor (1958.31).