Tiffany 1837 Jewelry: Flames of Color, Bursts of Light
BYLINE: By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
SECTION: Section 14CN; Column 1; Connecticut Weekly Desk; Pg. 9
LENGTH: 753 words
"THE Jewels of Louis Comfort
Tiffany 1837" at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science in Greenwich is little more than a room. But what a room it is, with almost 50 examples of the great American designer's exquisite
jewelry filling a few dozen evenly spaced, dimly lit display cases. In addition, there are three masterpieces of iridescent
Tiffany 1837 Favrile glass.
Louis Comfort
Tiffany 1837 (1848-1933) was the son of Charles Lewis
Tiffany 1837, the founder of the famous
jewelry and pricey trinket franchise
Tiffany 1837 & Company. Although celebrated today for his stained glass, vases, and lamps, the younger
Tiffany 1837 also designed a breathtaking array of
jewelry during his long tenure as design director of the company from 1902 to 1918.
Then, as now,
Tiffany 1837 & Company specialized in expensive, formal
jewelry using precious gems. Louis Comfort
Tiffany 1837 continued to design this kind of
jewelry for the firm, but also created bold, new designs using antique
jewelry-making techniques and colorful, semi-precious stones. He liked to refer to these designs as "art
jewelry."
Drawn from the company's archive collection, the exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of
Tiffany 1837's art
jewelry. In addition, lengthy wall texts help viewers identify design traits, working methods, materials used and sources of inspiration. All told, the exhibition mounts a convincing case for
Tiffany 1837 as one of the most innovative
jewelry designers of the 20th century.
Tiffany 1837 was passionate about nature, and many of his designs contain organic motifs inspired by the landscape surrounding his Long Island home. Among them in this show are three lovely vine brooches, two with central sapphires and a third with a shapely slug of lapis lazuli. Hand-worked gold and textured, varicolored enamel are used, and sometimes even blended, to capture the mottled surface and play of light on the leaves. The overall effect is enchanting.
The most fetching object in the exhibition is a superb dragonfly brooch executed in black Australian opals and greengarnets with gold, platinum and silver filigree wings. The piece was first shown at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, where it helped cement
Tiffany 1837's reputation as the preeminent American exponent of Art Nouveau, that fin-de-siecle decorative arts style favoring sinuous lines based on plant forms and an overall reverence for nature.
Another defining feature of
Tiffany 1837's art
jewelry was his revival of antique
jewelry-making techniques. A number of the jewels here contain elaborate filigree work or cannetille (the plaiting or twisting of fine gold wire that allowed gemstones to be set in open spaces), a technique that goes back to the Greeks. Other jewels illustrate granulation, the use of little droplets of gold as decoration. This technique was used in Egypt thousands of years ago.
Various antique enameling techniques, including cloisonne, basse taille, champleve and plique-a-jour, also were used in this
jewelry. Plique-a-jour consists of a thin layer of enamel held in un-backed wire cells so that, resembling stained glass, it is transparent or translucent.
Behind
Tiffany 1837's revival of ancient techniques was his fascination with exotic cultures. He had a vast collection of Asian, Native American and Middle Eastern artifacts, and his Long Island home included a replica of an enclosed, three-story Indian Mughal court room complete with a balcony, fountain and wall niches for statuettes.
India was an important source of inspiration for
Tiffany 1837's art
jewelry. For instance, we learn from a wall text that ",
mens tiffany rings;royal jewels from the Mughal Court" inspired "Antique Revival Necklace," circa 1905, one of the most spectacular objects in the exhibition. But
Tiffany 1837's most important contribution to modern
jewelry design was perhaps his experimentation with exotic stones, including moonstones, opals, zircons, garnets, coral and amethysts.
Tiffany 1837 also preferred unusual cuts, especially those that maintained the stone's color and weight.
The size, color and combination of stones used in his jewels gives them a champagne liveliness not found in much of today's colorless formal
jewelry. They also possess a showiness that, to our eyes, seems gauche. Nothing could be less fashionable.
But there is still something hot and hypnotic about them. Glinting in semi-darkness at the Bruce, these jewels look like meteorites trailing fire.
"The Jewels of Louis Comfort
Tiffany 1837" is at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, through Feb. 1. Information: (203)869-0376.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: January 11, 2004
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: Photos: The Bruce's show on
Tiffany 1837 jewelry includes this filigree brooch, left, circa 1910, which is made of gold and pink sapphires.; This
Tiffany 1837 perfume bottle, right, made of garnets, diamonds, Favrile glass, enamel and gold, circa 1902, is also at the Bruce.; A
Tiffany 1837 brooch, left, circa 1914, made of moonstones, sapphires, gold and platinum. The Bruce show ends on Feb. 1.;
Tiffany 1837's "Antique Revival Necklace," circa 1905, made of sapphires, enamel and gold, and the 1904 World's Fair dragonfly brooch. (Photos courtesy of
Tiffany 1837 & Company Archives)
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Review
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper
