Archive | Tiffany Originals

Twelve Light Pond Lily Lamp

Tiffany Studios Twelve Light Pond Lily Lamp.

The original Tiffany Studios Twelve Light Pond Lily Lamp.

As you may be aware, Tiffany Studios produced much more than their standard stained glass lamp shades.  There were many different products but in keeping with lighting one beautiful design that was created was the twelve light Pond Lily lamp.  The Pond Lily lamp had a three dimensional patinated bronze base design of round leaves and buds.  The trumpet lily shades made of favrile glass seemed to have varying colors available, one with a prevalent gold hue and others being more colorful.  Produced in the early 1900s, this beautiful piece measured roughly 21 1/4″ in height and the base number was 382.  Some of these masterpieces are still  around with recent reported sales at auctions of $21,000 and $41,800.  Currently one of these lamps with the iridescent glass is being offered for sale at $65,000.

Tiffany Studios Twelve Light Pond Lily Table Lamp

The original Tiffany Studios Twelve Light Pond Lily Lamp.

There have been many replicas made of the pond lily lamp shades and of the complete lamp itself.  This Tiffany style lamp design is very popular and several companies are currently producing it or variations of it.  Two of these companies are Dale Tiffany and Meyda Tiffany.

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The Loss of the Lamps

Pieces of GlassHave you ever wondered what happened to all the original Tiffany lamps?  Why are they so few and rare?  Were there only a handful produced and sold?  The truth is some of these gorgeous lamps were forgotten or lost.  Many were broken by accident or time.  Still others wound their way through garage sales and junk shops to end up in the garbage.  One group of Tiffany lamps, however, met an even worse fate as a result of the Great Depression and the fickle nature of fashion.

Louis Comfort Tiffany and his company, Tiffany Studios, was a huge success during the early 1900s.  Sadly, Tiffany had lost his eminence as an artist and designer by the time he died in 1933.  His lamps, once considered great works of art, were valued only for their materials.  Three years later, Tiffany Studios was dismantled and its contents auctioned off.  Witnesses describe how salvage dealers took the lamps out of the Studio and bashed them against the sidewalk in an effort to remove the beautiful, but worthless, art glass.  Left over were the lamp bases and frames made of lead and bronze which were melted down and sold.

This history illustrates well how practicality and the dollar were able to destroy a treasure trove of art.  It wasn’t until the mid 1950s that the beauty of Tiffany lamps was rediscovered.  By the 1960s people began reproducing them.  Today there are countless copies and new designs but the most valuable of them all is the original Tiffany lamp.

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