Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) installed this window in his famous chapel from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition when he reconstructed the interior at his Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall, in 1916. The ornamental lead filigree of the surrounding arches echo the shape of the original chapel arches and column capitals. The window depicts a woman with a child extending a wreath to three children, who are believed to be modeled after Tiffany’s grandchildren who lived near him on Long Island. The window is likely adapted from a Tiffany painting called In Memoriam shown in the 1888 Society of American Artists exhibition. The painting was described by one critic as “another important presentation of the Mother of Sorrows, much richer in color, seated before some wandering children and offering them funeral wreaths” [“The American Artists Exhibition,” Art Amateur 18, no. 6 (May 1888), 130]. Adoration may have existed as a window before its appearance in the chapel. The same scene was used in 1905 in a leaded-glass window Tiffany created as part of his commission to decorate the interior of the new Madison Square Presbyterian Church in New York City.
Adoration window
Adoration window, c. 1900–1916
Tiffany Chapel, Laurelton Hall, Long Island, New York, 1902–57
Leaded glass, iron Tiffany Studios, New York City, 1902–32 Gift of Adelphi College, Garden City, New York 111 3/4 x 153 in. (74-020)