Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was one of America’s premier artists. His career flourished from the 1870’s to the 1920’s and spanned several mediums from glass to jewelry.

He was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902), who was the founder of Tiffany & Company, which became one of the most renowned jewelry and silver companies.

Tiffany began his career as a painter, but in the late 1870’s turned his attention to the decorative arts, as well as interior design.

In 1892, he built a glass house in Queens NY working with Arthur Nash, a skilled glassworker from Stourbridge, England. His furnaces developed glass where different colors were blended together in the molten state. Recalling the Old English word febrile (hand-wrought), Tiffany named the glass Favrile.

Tiffany’s Favrile glass enabled craftsmen to not only create tonal gradations, but even “paint with glass” to design pictures within the glass itself.

Louis Comfort Tiffany and his Tiffany Studios would go on to become increasingly famous, not only for his Favrile and leaded glass, but also lighting, jewelry and more.