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In June, Christie’s auctioned 44 Tiffany masterworks from the Garden Museum, a private collection in Japan, and the sale earned a whopping $6,662,124. One piece alone—a rare circa-1905 stained glass chandelier adorned with dragonflies—went for more than $1 million. The sale exceeded low estimates by 157%, and its highest earners were lamps.
It wasn’t exactly a surprise, at least not for Daphné Riou, Christie’s head of design. In December of 2020 the auction house held its first dedicated Tiffany sale since 2014—a resounding success that doubled estimates. “Since then,” Riou explains, “the interest in Tiffany at Christie’s has continued to grow, with sales dedicated to Tiffany every six months, which attract new collectors every time.”
Founded in the 1880s by painter and interior designer Louis Comfort Tiffany (the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany of jewelry brand Tiffany & Co.), Tiffany Studios is best known for its glasswork—iridescent favrile glass and leaded stained glass, which took the form of windows, mosaics, fire screens, decorative objects, and, of course, the iconic lamps. It is now common knowledge that it was actually a group of self-proclaimed Tiffany Girls who made the lamps under the guidance of Clara Driscoll, head of the women’s glass cutting department from 1892 to 1909.
For decades, outside of dedicated Tiffany collectors, the pieces—poster children, if you will, of Art Nouveau style—have felt more like relics of a bygone era than blue chip collectibles for contemporary homes. But as tastes take a turn toward more decorative interiors and shows like The Gilded Age create renewed intrigue in the era, there’s been an expanded interest around Tiffany. The RealReal listed one recently for $350,000.
Rious confirms our suspicion: “The range of collectors interested in Tiffany is becoming broader: In our last sale, over 85% of Tiffany collectors were also collecting in other categories, in particular in postwar and contemporary art. It is also a global market, with more than 35% non-American collectors.”
“You say Gilded Age and people know what you mean now,” says Nadia Watts, a Denver-based interior designer and the great-great-granddaughter of Louis Comfort Tiffany. While researching for her just-released collection of textiles with Kravet, inspired by the rich texture and artistry of Tiffany Studios glass, Watts visited The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in Queens, New York. There, it wasn’t just the lamps that caught her eye, but the sundry cut glass pieces that they had acquired when Tiffany Studios closed.
The jewel-hued glass shapes inspired her own Gem Collection of fabrics—embroideries, prints, velvets, bouclés, and more, with colors and textures that nod to Tiffany’s rich history. “The essence of Tiffany is this handmade quality,” she explains. “Each piece of glass was individually chosen for each lamp. That adds a whole other layer to the design. Clients today are more interested in how something is made. That has changed in the last few years.”
That ultrabespoke sense of the handmade is appealing to interior designers and collectors alike. Since spotting several Tiffany wonders at the Winter Antiques Show in April, AD100 designer Giancarlo Valle has been itching to place one in a project. He imagines an elaborate chandelier hanging in a kitchen, for instance, or a mosaic fireplace in a super-austere space, musing that “I think they have to be in the complete opposite context of where they came from to really work.”
Elsewhere, decorator Remy Renzullo placed a Tiffany lamp from his mother’s collection on his bedside table in his Manhattan apartment. And Jennifer Anniston, working with AD100 interior designer Stephen Shadley, selected one to emit a warm light in the office of her Beverly Hills home. Contemporary product designers are also following suit with studios like Lulu LaFortune and Friend of All revisiting colored glass in their practice. Studio Job even released their own kitschy rendition of the classic—first in bronze with Carpenters Workshop, then in resin for Seletti.
When buying Tiffany pieces, as with any historic work, Riou advises paying close attention to condition and provenance. Interestingly, she explains, having studied price lists from 1906 and 1910, Tiffany’s most expensive creations at the time are still some of the most sought-after today. “They were the most complex shapes and most labor-intensive creations,” she says. “What can make an example of a model better than another is the artistry of the glass selection and the harmony of the color palette.”
Log this as an official departure from by the book minimalism. “People are moving away from that approach, or even the wabi-sabi look, because it’s so saturated,” Valle explains. “I think we’re seeing a return to this craftsman era, where there was one whole vision that stretched from design to architecture to interiors.”
