Vase

This bowl, on view in Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Life and Art gallery, is a subtly iridescent piece of blown glass that has the repetitive, continuous curvilinear decoration typical of Tiffany’s early works. The organic form reflects the experimental nature of glassblowing at Stourbridge Glass Company (1893–1902)—later renamed Tiffany Furnaces, Inc. (1902–20)—during the initial years of its production. In July 1894, when Tiffany was showing his new art glass in international exhibitions, Art Amateur magazine described these early pieces: “The semi-opaque pieces are charmingly flushed with different tones of uranium yellow, ruby red and other tints … heightened in some cases by metallic luster.” The bowl is exhibited at the Morse in a case with three other examples from this period, showing the range of creativity infused in Tiffany’s work in art glass.