Long Island, NY Estate
Kenneth Olsen, Mayor of Matawan, NJ
Barr-Gardner Associates, New York, circa 1986

Edward Colonna, Essay on Broom-Corn, Dayton, Ohio, 1887
Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany, Rebel in Glass, New York, 1966, p. ix (for the Havemeyer Punch Bowl)
Suzanne Boorsch, Marilynn Johnson and Marvin D. Schwartz, 19^th Century America: Furniture and Other Decorative Arts, New York, 1970, no. 258 (for the Magnolia Vase)
Martin Eidelberg, "Edward Colonna's 'Essay on Broom-Corn': a forgotten book of early art nouveau," The Connoisseur, vol. 126, February 1971, pp. 123-130
Marshall B. Davidson and Elizabeth Stillinger, The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, p. 222 (for the Magnolia Vase)
Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany’s Art Glass, New York, 1977, fig. 10 (for the Havemeyer Punch Bowl)
Sheldon Barr, "Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Metal and Glass Masterpieces," New England Antiques Journal, November 1986, p. 14 (for the present example illustrated)
Alastair Duncan, Martin Eidelberg and Neil Harris, Masterworks of Louis Comfort Tiffany, London, 1989, p. 52 (for the Havemeyer Punch Bowl)
Vivienne Couldrey, The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany, Secaucus, NJ, 1997, p. 49 (for the Mermaid Vase)
William P. Hood, Jr., Tiffany Silver Flatware, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999, p. 241 (for Broom-Corn Flatware)
Rosalind M. Pepall, ed., Tiffany Glass–A Passion for Color, Montreal, 2009, p. 27 (for the Havemeyer Punch Bowl)

Overall in good condition. The silvered copper mount with light surface oxidation in the recessed areas, consistent with age and gentle handling. The favrile glass body with some occasional small air bubble and particulate inclusions inherent in the making and not visually detracting. The glass body with a hairline crack to the proper left side of the handle, extending from the top rim to the lower region of the handle mount. This hairline has been stabilized by a professional glass conservator and is only visible under close inspection. The exterior surfaces of the favrile glass body and inset glass cabochons are beautifully iridized, and when viewed with reflected light display a wide range of luminous jewel-tone hues. The inset glass cabochons with some light surface scratches and gentle wear to the raised contours, and with some occasional minute surface flecks (all minor). A highly important and historic work by Tiffany Studios showing the firm’s extraordinary workmanship in mounted glass. When viewed firsthand the claret jug shows slightly more subtle and nuanced coloration than seen in the catalogue illustrations, which are slightly over saturated.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company began advertising “new combinations of…the union of metal with glass”¹ as early as January 1895, less than three years after the firm’s establishment.  From very early on, Louis Tiffany saw the combination of glass and metal as an art, and critics soon realized mounted Favrile objects were “no passing phase, but rather an art that has come to take its place with the rest.”² 

In Tiffany’s early metal and glass objects the metal acted as the supportive structure for the glass, interfering with the “wonderful beauty of the glass” as little as possible.  These initial compositions evolved into integrating the two materials, by laying the metal filigree over the blown glass.  By 1899 the company quickly perfected techniques of blowing glass into metalwork that had an open reticulated design.  Such is the case with the handle and the mount of this superb claret jug: transparent yellow glass has been delicately blown into the curved handle and the spade-shaped openings, the glass in the latter with an applied gold iridescence.  The silver wash over the thick copper groundwork finishes the piece, creating what critics of the time called “an alluring effect.”³

The designer and manufacturer of the claret jug’s mount are unknown, as is the case with the extraordinary Havemeyer punch bowl in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s collection, which was made for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, Paris.  Both could be attributed to the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, as they are known to have been created at approximately the same time and incorporate similarly modest glass decoration in beautifully fashioned metalwork.  It is possible that Clara Driscoll, head of the firm’s Women’s Glass Cutting Department, devised both mounts.  By 1899, Driscoll was also responsible for “all the portable objects in Favrile glass and metal combinations”⁴ sold by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company.  The scrollwork motif of the claret jug was a design the firm had already adopted in the late 1890s for some of its desk objects, specifically the paperweight (model no. 932) and pen tray (model no. 1001) in the “Swirl” design and the “Wave” pattern paperweight (model no. 933).  Driscoll is generally credited with creating both of these motifs.

Furthermore, in 1899, Parker C. McIlhiney, the company’s head chemist patented a method of electroplating raised surfaces of metal with additional layers of metal.  This patented technique was probably used to achieve the silver patina on the claret’s bronze mounts.  It also might explain the reason for the greater depth of the scrollwork in the claret jug’s mount, drastically different from the simpler linear mounts of earlier mounted Favrile glass forms. 

Despite this evidence supporting Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company as the designer, there are other possibilities as to who designed and made the mount that must be considered.  One is Tiffany’s connection with Siegfried Bing, a Parisian gallery owner.  Bing, the primary European retailer and promoter of Favrile glass since 1894, intensified his efforts to place Tiffany’s creations in homes and museums throughout the continent with the 1895 opening of his shop, Maison de l’Art Nouveau.  Bing was initially very successful from a commercial aspect, but criticism gradually developed due to the absence of a unified look of the objects being offered by his gallery.  Bing hired Edouard Colonna in early 1898 with the intent of rectifying that problem.

Colonna, born in Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1882 and soon found employment with the interior decorating firm known as Louis C. Tiffany and Associated Artists.  He only worked for the company for a year but was involved in a major commission: the decoration of American real estate magnate Ogden Goelet’s Fifth Avenue mansion.  Colonna moved to Dayton, Ohio, and in 1887 published his seminal work, Essay on Broom-Corn.  This slender book, possibly influenced by the work of British designer Arthur Mackmurdo, consists of no text and only twelve sketches.  It served, however, as a precursor to the entire Art Nouveau movement with its utilization of whiplash curves and sinuous, intertwined lines. 

Bing assigned Colonna the task of designing metal mounts for some of the objects already in the gallery.  This included several Favrile vases, and Colonna’s former connection with Tiffany might have entered into Bing’s decision to hire Colonna.  It also seems more than a coincidence that Bing decided to exhibit Colonna’s jewelry, together with Tiffany’s lamps, vases, mosaics and windows, at the major exhibition Bing organized at the Grafton Galleries, London, in 1899.

Another firm producing silver mounts for Favrile glass during this time was Tiffany & Company, who designed mounted Favrile glass from 1897 until 1909.  Producing over two hundred different silver-mounted Favrile glass designs, the objects that are most similar to the claret jug were created under the direction of John T. Curran, Tiffany’s head silver designer from 1891-1894.  He first received international praise in 1890 for his “Broom-Corn” flatware pattern, featuring undulating curves that show the influence of Colonna’s designs.  Curran later obtained recognition for his design of the Magnolia Vase, the major showpiece at the 1893 World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Featuring rippling whiplash curves, the same echoing swirls featured on the base of the vase are repeated on the neck and the handle of the claret jug. 

In ^addition, at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, Paris, the same fair where the Havemeyer punch bowl was displayed, Tiffany & Company displayed seven silver and gold mounted Favrile glass vases as part of their award-winning exhibition.  George Paulding Farnham, Tiffany’s head jewelry designer, was responsible for the mounts that contained undulating curves and waves.  One vase that featured these motifs was the famous mermaids and dolphins vase, an iridescent blue Favrile glass bowl supported by two silver gold-plated mermaids and dolphins rising from turbulent waters.  The rolling waves on the base and neck of the vase are once again similar to the curling and interweaving lines of the claret jug. 

The designer and manufacturer of the mount might forever remain a mystery.  However, it is clearly evident that the claret jug is superbly crafted and one of Louis Tiffany’s supreme creations in glass and metal, unquestionably revealing the finest aesthetics of the Art Nouveau movement. 

AMY C. MCHUGH, Assistant Curator, Tiffany & Co. Archives

PAUL DOROS, former curator of glass at the Chrysler Museum (Norfolk, Virginia) and author of The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany (New York:  Vendome Press), 2013

¹ The Churchman, vol. 71, no. 1, January 5, 1895, p. vi
² Hermione, “Modes and Moods,” Country Life, vol.  12, no.  306, November 15, 1902, p. xxix
³ Horace Townsend, “American and French Applied Art at the Grafton Galleries,” The Studio, vol.  17, 1899, p. 44
⁴ C.S., “Women and Their Work,” New York Evening Post, August 30, 1899, p. 5