Tiffany Lighting and Lamps, in particular, are named for their creator, Louis Comfort Tiffany, who was an American designer and artist best known for his work with the Art Nouveau movement.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an interior designer and a painter during his early professional years. Soon, Louis Tiffany began to focus more intensely on blown glass, ceramics, enamels, jewelry, and metalwork in addition to his other types of work with stained glass.
Tiffany went to school at the Eagleswood Military Academy in New Jersey. His first serious artistic training was as a painter. Tiffany first studied under the painter Samuel Coleman and George Inness in New York, as well as Leon Bailly in Paris, France.
In the latter 1870s, Louis Tiffany became particularly invested in glassmaking. In the year 1885, Tiffany founded his own glassmaking company and design firm. He became most well known for using opalescent glass in a spectrum of colors and textures in order to create a very singular style of stained glass.
This technique of glassmaking can be contrasted with the method of glass that is painted with enamels or colorless glass. One of the more unique aspects of Tiffany's creations was the way that he connected the individual pieces of stained glass with lead piping.
In 1893 Louis Tiffany's company introduced the term 'Favrile' in correlation to his first production of blow glass pieces at his glass factory in New York at Corona. Tiffany trademarked 'Favrile' on November 13th, 1894 and later used the word to refer to all of his glass, pottery and enamel pieces.
While much of Tiffany's productions were lamps and other stained glass pieces, the company also produced a complete spectrum of interior decorations of all kinds.
Tiffany also designed his own home, an eighty four room estate called Laurelton Hall in Oyster Bay, Long Island that was established in the year 1904. Tiffany's Estate in Oyster Bay was later donated to his foundation for art students as well as sixty acres of land. Unfortunately, these donated lands were destroyed by fire in 1957.
The art and vision of Louis Comfort Tiffany live on in the unique style of Tiffany stained glass. This style has been reproduced in countless variations since Tiffany and before. The beauty of stained glass, of course, goes back thousands of years.
If you are interested in purchasing Tiffany-inspired lamps and stained glass pieces, there are many websites, both commercial and informational, where you can find out more about this particular style of lighting.
