This early Tiffany Favrile Glass “Calyx” Vase is an exceptional example of the form developed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and the glass chemists in his employ at his private glassworks in Corona, Queens.
Throughout the 1890s, Tiffany and his head chemist Arthur Nash perfected a series of blown glass vases that became known as “Flower Form” or “Floriform” Vases. These naturalistic blown glass vessels are pure art glass, meant capture the essence of a flower rather than utilizing glass to display floral arrangements.
This Monumental “Calyx” Flower Form features an elongated flower cup formed by translucent glass in a pale shade of blue-green accented by narrow vertical stripes of transparency which opacify as the body of the vase bows out at the shoulder before tapering to a narrow rim. The vase is decorated with a pulled leaf decoration in deeper green sparkling aventurine glass rising from narrow stem. A domed pillowed foot of translucent glass which was “fumed” on the underside, allowing for gold iridescent to shimmer beneath a coordinating pulled leaf motif.
This rare example of blown Tiffany Favrile Glass is inscribed on the underside with signature and date code.
Height: 19 inches (48.3 cm)
Related example illustrated:
Paul Doros, The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York: The Vendome Press, 2013, p. 70, fig. 18.
