We wish to thank the dealers and private collectors who allow us to display their Tiffany Studios lamps and Tiffany Favrile glass making this online exhibit possible. On this and the subsequent pages, we display some of the finest examples of Tiffany Studios lamps and Tiffany Favrile glass as we tell the story of Louis Comfort Tiffany and his glassmaking techniques, some never duplicated even today. From early blown shades to the elaborate leaded lamps, enjoy learning and having fun on the pages of the Collectics Tiffany Lamps and Favrile Glass Online Museum.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was born on January 17, 1848, the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, and began his career as a painter in the 1860s and 1870s. He founded his own firm, Tiffany Studios, in 1885 and focused on art glass. Earlier, Louis Comfort Tiffany had already registered for a patent on a new glassmaking technique of combining different colors in opalescent glass to create vibrant, multidimensional hues of color never before seen in glass. With the help of chemists, craftsmen, and glass designers, he was able to make stained glass in over 5000 different colors and textures. This challenged the traditional approach of painting on glass to create multicolored effects. Tiffany became an enthusiastic supporter of the European Art Nouveau movement, challenging the current Victorian ornate style. Art Nouveau used free-flowing designs based on nature that exemplified the characteristics prevalent in Tiffany's earlier creations as a landscape painter. The use of light, color and nature assumed greater significance in Louis Comfort Tiffany's work as he developed his unique approach to Art Nouveau. Tiffany's work was displayed in Europe at the most important venue for the introduction of Art Nouveau, Siegfried Bing's L'Art Nouveau. In an effort to reach the interiors of a greater population, Tiffany began to design lamps to allow more people to enjoy art and beauty in their own home. Colored glass, Tiffany's lasting love and challenge, found fresh scope and inspiration. While the windows served to transmit the light of day, the lamps represent a new source of illumination independent of daylight. Fabrication of Tiffany Studios lamps began in 1885, with the majority of them being made between 1895 and 1920. It was not until 1899 that Louis Comfort Tiffany publicly introduced the lamps for sale.