Tiffany Studios Eighteen-Light "Lily" Table Lamp

18370: Tiffany Studios Eighteen-Light "Lily" Table Lamp
Tiffany Studios (American, 1902–1932)
American, circa 1910
Height 51.5cm, width 49cm, depth 49cm

This table lamp is constructed in patinated bronze and carries eighteen blown Favrile glass shades. The stems rise from the base as a single bundled cluster and separate towards the top, each arching outward and downward to terminate in a bronze calyx of overlapping sepals that grips the neck of a shade. The base is cast as a group of lily pads, buds and coiling tendrils, modelled in the round and finished in a reddish-brown patina with green traces in the recesses.

The shades are of trumpet form with flared, gently ruffled rims. Each was blown individually and no two are identical in tone: most shade from amber at the tip to a paler gold at the mouth, several carry green and blue passages at the neck, and the interiors show a pink and violet iridescence that shifts with the viewing angle. Tiffany registered the name Favrile in 1894 for glass whose surface effects were produced during blowing rather than applied afterwards, the iridescence achieved by exposing the hot glass to metallic oxide vapours. Because the light source in this model faces downwards and is unreflected, the glass is read directly against the illuminated interior rather than as a diffusing screen.

The lily was among the earliest of the Tiffany Studios naturalistic lamp designs and was produced in versions of three, six, seven, ten, twelve and eighteen lights, the eighteen-light configuration being among the largest of the table models. Each shade is wired independently, so the lamp may be lit in part or in full. The design appeared shortly after domestic electricity became widespread in American cities, and the pendent form, impossible with a gas or oil flame, is a direct response to the new bulb.

Each shade is incised along the rim L.C.T. Favrile or L.C.T. The base is stamped TIFFANY STUDIOS NEW YORK 383.
 $142,500