Private Collection, Southern Illinois
Sotheby’s New York, June 17, 1989, lot 783

Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Windows, New York, 1980, p. 89, no. 72 and p. 93, no. 78 (for related "River of Life" windows)
Norman Potter and Douglas Jackson, Tiffany, London, 1988, p. 57 (for a related window)
Alastair Duncan, Martin Eidelberg and Neil Harris, Masterworks of Louis Comfort Tiffany, London, 1989, pp. 130-131 (for related windows)
Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, “Agnes Northrop:  Tiffany Studios’ Designer of Floral and Landscape Windows,” in Patricia Pongracz, ed., Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion,  New York, 2012 (for related windows)
David A. Hanks, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Treasures from the Driehaus Collection, New York, 2013, pp. 182-183, no. 64 (for a related window)

Overall: the window is stable throughout and in very good condition. The panel was recently stabilized and cleaned by Venturella Studio, one of the leading museum-level conservation studios in the country specializing in leaded glass windows. Please contact the department for a copy of the condition report and elective restoration proposal provided by Venturella Studio. The design of this window is executed in five horizontal registers (in the report below numbered 1-5 from top to bottom). The window panel is selectively plated (layered) on the reverse up to three layers of glass to heighten the visual depth of the landscape composition. All of the Tiffany Studios favrile glass on the front side of the window panel appears original and intact. The window with some scattered hairline cracks throughout, which is to be expected considering the vast number of individual pieces of glass required to execute a window of this scale and complexity. All of the hairlines throughout appear stable, and many are very small and minor. The window retains its four horizontal iron support bars on the front of the panel which appear original. The panel is installed with a later white-painted wood frame which shows expected surface wear, craquelure and minor losses to the painted surfaces throughout. The window presents beautifully, displaying a highly artistic and nuanced glass selection which imparts the scenic composition with strong visual depth. Sotheby's will be happy to present the successful purchaser of this lot with a custom-built light box for the installation of this window. Panel 1: with 4 hairline cracks to the small tiles articulating the Magnolia blossoms (all stable). Of the two lead cames extending above the Magnolia blossom, the left came appears to be a later addition and the right came is original to the panel. (Though not visually detracting, Venturella Studios has presented a restoration proposal for the possible removal of this added lead line, if desired.) On the reverse side of Panel 1, the outermost piece of plated glass appears to be replaced. Please note that Tiffany Studios used commercial glass by other glass producers (not their own artistic "favrile" glass) for plating the reverse of their windows. Thus, it is a widely accepted practice today to replace plated glass if deemed necessary. Panel 2: with a diagonal hairline crack extending through the sky passage (which appears stable), emanating from the lower Magnolia cluster and terminating at the horizontal lead line above. (While this hairline appears stable, Venturella Studio's restoration proposal includes a recommendation for cleaning and professionally stabilizing this area.) With 2 hairline cracks to the Magnolia blossoms along the left facing border, and with surface soiling to the recessed contours of the dimensional "drapery" glass articulating the Magnolia blossoms. Panel 3: with approximately 8 hairline cracks to the glass tiles dispersed throughout (all stable), and with surface soiling to the drapery glass noted above. Panel 4: with approximately 15 hairline cracks to the glass tiles dispersed throughout (all stable). On the reverse of the panel, there is an added diagonal lead line to the outermost plated glass (visible in the catalogue illustration.) This lead line was added to stabilize a crack to the plated glass. Two small pieces of clear glass in the adjacent upper corners of this reverse-plated panel appear to be replaced. Venturella Studio has presented a proposal for the removal of this added lead line. Panel 5: with approximately 25-30 hairline cracks to the glass tiles dispersed throughout (all stable).
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.

A spring dawn, lightly framed with white and pink magnolias, breaks over gentle mountains.  A quiet brook trickles between lushly blooming purple irises.  This River of Life is a fine example of a new theme in stained-glass windows in the early twentieth century, popularized by Tiffany Studios beginning in the late 1890s.  By the 1910s, landscapes had become a staple of Tiffany’s window production.  Three landscape cartoons are visible high on the wall on the right side of a photograph of the studio from 1913, the center one of which is similar to this window (see pages 122-123).

The window was undoubtedly designed by Agnes Fairchild Northrop (1857-1953), who conceived almost all of Tiffany Studios’ landscape windows.  Northrop was the principal landscape and floral window designer for Tiffany between 1884 and the close of the studio in 1936, working on past that date well into her eighties.  She wrote that the choices of flowers and colors were dictated by the clients.  In this case, the use of rich pink Chinese magnolias (magnolia soulangeana)—they were usually white in Tiffany’s windows—is especially uncommon.  Northrop often photographed the flowers she later turned into stained glass, including magnolias as in the illustration shown here (see page 120).

Prior to the end of the nineteenth century, the landscape was not generally considered a subject for religious stained glass.  But with the rise of more liberal religious sects in the United States, and under the influence of the Transcendental philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson, there was a shift from seeing God only as a personified deity to reflecting him in the beauty of nature, as in many Eastern religions.  Landscapes came to represent the passage of life as river, and an Edenic vision of the afterlife.

In domestic windows, the translation of landscape into glass was partially an outgrowth of the landscape painting movement epitomized by the Hudson River School.  Where earlier, painted views of fields, mountains, or water gave the home a sense of alfresco spaciousness, by the turn of the century, the brilliance of glass added light to the interior as well.  Landscape windows blocked unsightly views in urban residences, replacing them with glowing inspirational vistas.  Tiffany’s landscapes were also influenced by Japanese woodblock prints and Chinese screens—popular among artists and collectors of the time—in their compositions of scenic views framed by foliage.

Stained glass lent itself well to luminous light effects—dawn and dusk—as well as the reflection of light on water.  Tiffany’s many textures of glass brought a hitherto unknown element of verisimilitude to grass, foliage, and flowers.  Drapery glass, pushed into heavy folds while molten, embodies the lush petals of the magnolias.  Mottled glass depicts cloud shadows on the grass of the middle ground.  Striated glass adds to the impression of dappled light on the leaves and petals of the irises.  Plating (layering of glass) and acid-etching to remove layers of color contribute to the impressions of distance and atmosphere without using glass paint that dulled light.  By removing a casing of color using acid, the deeply cut edges of the river bank look to be in deep shadow.  The same technique creates the light reflections on the water and the multicolored sky, layering etched pink, yellow, and blue glass.  In the sky and hills, the verso is plated in select areas up to three layers of glass to heighten pictorial depth.

This stunning depiction, achieved through the artistic selection and layering of luminous glass, is a tour de force of Tiffany Studios’ work in leaded glass, evoking the true glory of their landscape windows.  

JULIE L. SLOAN, Stained-Glass Consultant, North Adams, MA