Daucus Carota, also known as wild carrot or Queen Anne's Lace, is a common wildflower which held a particular fascination for Louis Comfort Tiffany and his designers. It appears at various stages of its development in his designs produced under the Tiffany name, ranging from examples of jewelry designed by Louis ComfortTiffany to a spectacular Favrile Pottery vase, a line of bronze candlesticks, and this unusal and rare inkstand.
The round base of the stand features a motif in relief of the plant's bristly, pinnate leaves, while the central inkwell with hinged lid takes the form of the sculptural seed head which forms in the fall.
The Queen Anne's Lace inkstand was probably designed by Clara Driscoll under Tiffany's direction; she references her intent to make objects based on the flower in a letter to her family in August of 1898. An example of this inkwell was likely exhibited in Siegfried Bing's exhibition held at the Grafton Galleries in the spring of 1899; item no. 32 in Bing's catalogue of the exhibition is referred to as "inkstand in metal, wild carrot."
This rare piece of early Tiffany metalwork bears both the stamp for Tiffany Studios and the Tiffany Glass Decorating Co. monogram on the underside, indicating its early date of production.
Height: 4 inches (10.2 cm)
Diameter: 5 ¼ inches (13.3 cm)
Bibliography:
Alastair Duncan, Louis C. Tiffany: The Garden Museum Collection, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2004, p. 366.
Similar examples illustrated:
Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Lamps and Metalware, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2007, p. 430, no. 1709
Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray and Margaret K. Hofer, A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls, exhibition catalog, New York Historical Society, New York, 2007, p. 83.