The Tiffany Studios ....
history
 Tiffany
has long been associated with exquisitely beautiful and exquisitely
crafted objects and Tiffany pieces produced at the turn of the last
century can be very expensive, the national press routinely feature
reports of glass lamps and iridescent vases selling at auction for
tens, and sometimes hundreds, or thousands of pounds.
Antique Tiffany pieces are popular, and therefore expensive, because
they are distinctive, innovative and skilfully crafted. The complex
designs and quality of workmanship obvious in the glass and metalware
that originate in the creativity and dedication of one man: Louis
Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933).
In 1997, Christies
auction house sold a tiffany Lotus lamp, formed from a delicate
arrangement of stained glass, for a record-breaking £1.5 million.
However, it is still possible to find more affordable objects produced
by the company.
As the son of Charles
Louis Tiffany, the founder of the successful multi-million dollar
Tiffany & Co. jewellery business, Louis Comfort Tiffany was
originally expected to oversee the family firm. Instead he chose
to make his own unique mark on the world by following his passion
for the creative arts and employing the good business sense he inherited
from his father.
After studying as a painter, Tiffany established a successful interior
design company, Louis C. Tiffany & Associated Artists and from
the mid-1870s, the company was very much in demand by wealthy society
members with both Mark Twain and the White House featuring on the
tiffany client list. 
While working on his interior designs, Tiffany developed his long
held fascination with glass, which he used extensively in his restyled
interiors. As a student, he had studied glass-blowing and started
experimenting relentlessly with new techniques.
In 1881 he patented
his unique type of iridescent glass, named ‘Favrile’
which is german for handcrafted. The glass departed from the fashion
for decorating pieces with painted designs and instead was sprayed
with metallic lustres to create an opalescent and multi-dimensional
finish.
In 1885 Tiffany
established a new company, which was later named Tiffany Studios,
to focus on the development of innovative freeblown glass vases
which he produced commercially from 1894.
The Art Nouveau style influenced the shape and design of his pieces,
but in he maintained the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement
and objects were skilfully hand-finished to the highest standard.
His distinctive ‘Jack-in-the Pulpit’ and slender floriform
vases are particularly sought after today and prices can range from
£500 to tens of thousands of pounds. Simpler vase shapes were
decorated with a huge variety of techniques such as feathering,
painting and threading. Some shapes were so complex that they took
many months to produce.
 Although
highly regarded for his glass vases, it is the dazzling and distinctive
array of handmade lamps and shades that Tiffany is now most widely
known for.
As a young man in Europe, Tiffany had been struck by the beauty
of stained glass church windows and had used decorative windows
in his work as an interior designer. He realised that the tremendous
effects of daylight through coloured glass could be recreated in
the domestic interior using artificial light and lampshades would
be a perfect medium for this work.
The first leaded shades included ‘Nautilus’, ‘Dragonfly’
and ‘Wisteria’ and by 1906 he had over 125 different
styles on sale. 
Generally hemispherical in shape, shades were made from tiny fragments
of glass held together by lead. Earlier pieces tended to be simple
with geometric designs using only one or two colours. Then after
extensive experimentation Tiffany had over 5,000 colours at his
disposal, and he utilised these to reproduced the subtle variety
of tones found in nature.
Over time the decoration became more complex and colourful, featuring
flowers, fruit and insects in highly ornate arrangements. Natural
designs that featured irregular shaped borders required the highest
level of skill to produce and are highly collectable and extremely
valuable today. With prices ranging between £5,000 for a simple
single colour shade to over a million pounds for the most rare and
exquisite examples.
After exhibiting at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900,
His successes with art glass vases and leaded lamps lead Tiffany
to international acclaim.
 However,
Tiffany did not limit himself to the production of glass; he excelled
in designing silver, jewellery and bronze objects.
Among these were affordable household items such as lamp bases,
desk accessories and clocks. Some of these items were retailed through
Tiffany & Co., which he presided over after the death of his
father in 1902.
Tiffany’s metal pieces can be more affordable than much of
his glassware and allow collectors on tighter budgets to own a sample
of the great designer’s work.
A patterned bronze ashtray might cost around £200-300, while
enamelled gilt-bronze bookends can fetch in the region of £1,000-2,000.
Although, prices can rise to tens of thousands for more unusual
items, such as a bronze inkwell with turtleback panels.
Most metalware is marked “Tiffany Studios, New York”,
but as with tiffany glass, there are a great many fakes on the market.
After many years of success, Tiffany Studios finally
closed in 1932.
Tiffany & Co. are still in business and continue to produce
high quality silver, jewellery and glass today
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Some
of Tiffany's most stunning work in glass, however, was on a much
bigger scale. 