Upholstered Settee

This is exceptional Settee descended through the family of the prestigious 19th century New Yorker who originally commissioned it in the early 1880s directly from Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists, one of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s early design firms.

Likely dating to 1882, this settee is part of a suite of furniture produced by Tiffany including an exceptional center table with inset leaded glass panels, and a large custom piano. which reveals the confluence of several significant commissions (in particular the Park Avenue Armory’s Veteran’s Room and the Union League Club in New York City) and Tiffany’s own experiments in furniture design and production at a time when he was gradually distancing himself from Associated Artists.

The body of the settee is formed by curly Maple, selected by Tiffany for its “beauty of grain,” echoing the choice of the same wood for the interior of Tiffany’s own living spaces at the mansion he and Stanford White erected for the Tiffany family on 72nd Street in 1882. The twisted baluster legs showcase the exceptional figured grain of this wood.

The settee has been reupholstered in contemporary fabric by designer Nadia Watts, the great-great-granddaughter of Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose collection of fabrics was inspired by the rich textures and colors of Tiffany glass.

Louis C. Tiffany & Associated Artists would close by the mid-1880s, while Tiffany would go on to form a series of companies under his own name in which glass would take center stage. As Tiffany and his early collaborators began to drift, new access to manufacturing processes and artisanal prowess provided him with access to glass that was made to his exact specifications, enabling him to embark on his own career as a decorator and designer without associates and freeing him to follow his creative whims.