This Daffodil Vase is an extremely rare monumental example of Tiffany’s “Bronze Pottery,” a highly specialized production line that grew out of experiments conducted between the artists working in the Metalwork department and the Favrile Pottery and Enamel department.
The surface of the cylindrical vase is decorated with a highly detailed motif in relief of a variety of ornamental Daffodil flowers, each with their own distinct and naturalistic representation of petals and trumpets, surrounded by spiky vertical leaves.
Tiffany’s “Bronze Pottery” was developed around 1908 by Parker Cairns McIlhiney, a chemist and scientist who was first hired by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the early 1900s to develop new glazes and decorative finishes for Favrile Glass and Favrile Pottery. In Bronze Pottery, a bisque Favrile Pottery piece would be glazed on the interior, electroplated, and further patinated to resemble bronze.
McIlhiney worked closely with the “Tiffany Girls” in the Favrile Pottery and Enamel department, whose watercolor sketches of flowers and plants often directly inspired the ornament or form of the vessels that the company would produce.
Height: 12 ⅞ inches (32.7 cm)
References:
Martin Eidelberg, “Tiffany Favrile Pottery and the Quest of Beauty,” p. 28, 90.
Martin Eidelberg and Nancy McClelland, ”Behind the Scenes of Tiffany Glassmaking: The Nash Notebooks,"p. 176.
