POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Jack in the pulpit' vase by Tiffany

Object No. 2001/9/1

This 'Jack in the pulpit' vase was designed in around 1900 by Louis Comfort Tiffany possibly in collaboration with Thomas Manderson, Tiffany's first glass blower. One of the largest and most spectacular versions in 'Jack in the pulpit' the series, this example was made in 1908 at Tiffany Furnaces in Corona, Long Island, New York. 'Jack in the pulpit' vases (named after an American wildflower) with their slender, curving stems and large undulating corollas are among the best known examples of glass designed in the Art Nouveau style. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of New York's famous jewellery and silversmiting business, was a leading American Art Nouveau designer and interior decorator. Initially trained as a painter, he turned to the decorative arts in 1878 and a year later set up a New York firm of interior decorators which won many prestigious clients including the American writer Mark Twain. It was his work in glass however, from stained glass windows and lamp shades to beautiful floriate vases, that was to bring international fame. Inspired by a small American woodland flower (Arisaema triphyllum), 'Jack in the pulpit' vases are among the most celebrated of LC Tiffany's glass creations. They were made form iridescent favrile glass, which he patented in 1894. The term favrile, Tiffany's trade name for iridescent wares, derived from fabrile, an 'old English' word meaning handmade or belonging to a craftsman. The iridescent colours of Tiffany's glass were inspired by those found on excavated antique Syrian and Roman glass. Several glass firms made iridescent glass in the early 1900s, but Tiffany's soft, incandescent sheen of lustrous favrile glass was unique. Samuel Bing, owner of the legendary Maison de l'Art Nouveau shop in Paris, commented: 'After all the accomplishments of the Venetians, of Galle and others, it is still possible to innovate, to utilise glass in a new way that was so often opaque and matte, with a surface that was like skin to the touch, silky and delicate (V. Couldrey, The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany, New Jersey, 1996, p.95-6). Jack in the pulpit vases were made in different sizes and colour combinations. The colours were achieved by dissolving salts of rare metals in molten glass and keeping them in an oxidised state in the kiln to produce chemical reactions. Sometimes, as illustrated in this example, the pieces were also sprayed with chloride, which made the surface to break up into fine lines that picked up the light. Today, blue versions are among the rarest, closely followed by large gold variations such as this vase. The gold lustre is believed to have been formed from $20 gold coins dissolved in hydrofluoric acid. Tiffany's iridescent glass was much imitated long after Tiffany ceased making 'Jack in the pulpit' vases in the late 1920s. In Australia, as in America, it inspired pressed carnival glass produced in the first part of the 20th century. In fact, Tiffany's Art Nouveau stained glass windows, lamp shades as well as his iridescent glassware still continue to influence glass makers around the world Eva Czernis-Ryl, 2008