Abundance

Abundance, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s 1888 painting of a sow with her piglets in autumn, shows us a different side of the famous glass artist. Hugh F. McKean (1908–95), the Morse Museum’s director from its founding in 1942 until his death, wrote a stirring description of this work: “Louis Tiffany, the famous artist and son of the founder of Tiffany & Company, painting pigs at their lunch time? Yes, Yes, Yes. Tiffany was an enthusiastic farmer, a special kind of farmer. Laurelton Hall, his estate, had its own herd of cows, its own barns, and its own domestic animals of other kinds. Tiffany liked growing things, and he liked dogs, horses, cows, and pigs. Laurelton Hall was not only a great country seat, it was a model farm. In this watercolor and gouache painting, Tiffany is telling us it is good to see piglets with their mother, and more than that, how good life is, especially if one lives on a farm. This little scene of pumpkins and squashes in the lower right-hand corner was a favorite motif. ‘Sow with Piglets’ was one of his favorite paintings. If you have always thought of Louis Tiffany as a ‘glass’ man, think some more.” Look for Hugh McKean’s labels throughout the Morse galleries. “While few of these labels really attempted to factually inform the visitor,” says Director Laurence J. Ruggiero, “they aimed very directly at capturing the visitor’s imagination and directing it toward a work of art.”