This rare Tiffany Lamp features an early variation of the Apple Blossom Shade, likely designed by Clara Driscoll or one of the Tiffany Girls around the turn of the twentieth century. This 12-inch diameter Apple Blossom model was listed in Tiffany Studios’ 1906 Price List, but by 1910 the company had discontinued the size in favor of the 16-inch diameter shade more commonly seen today.
This shade depicts an Apple Blossom tree, its asymmetrical limbs laden with flowers and buds in both streaky and mottled Tiffany Glass in shades ranging from vibrant magenta to pale pink and opalescent white, surrounded by leaves in mottled green glass. The dramatic background is formed by carefully selected transparent “foliage” or “confetti” glass in shades ranging from blue to white, with inclusions and streaks of pink, white, yellow, green and brown, suggestive of the layering of the foliage and flowers in the distance. The branches, articulated in streaky brown glass mimicking tree bark, descend from the upper border row as well as rise up from the lower border row, with some branches overlapping the lower edge.
The shade is paired with an early original bronze Tiffany Lamp Base with inset iridescent blue pressed Tiffany Glass jewels.
The Apple Blossom was one of a variety of spring flowering trees which appealed to Louis Comfort Tiffany and which frequently appear throughout his oeuvre and throughout the production line at Tiffany Studios. In addition the line of Tiffany Lamps, Apple Blossoms appear in floral paperweight Favrile Glass Vases, enamel on copper vessels, and a photograph by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (53.679.1805).
An example of this shade is in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (2018.284).
Diameter: 12 inches (30.5 cm)
Height: 21 ¼ inches (54 cm)
Reference:
Martin Eidelberg, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Nancy McClelland, and Lars Rachen, The Lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany (The Vendome Press, 2005), pg. 88