Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company "Head of Joseph of Arimathea", An Important Mosaic Panel Related to "The Entombment" Window, New York, 1892

Designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848-1933), the figure modeled on his father, Charles Lewis Tiffany (American, 1812-1902)
Exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, 1893
Favrile glass, with original steel frame

H: 21 3/4, W: 20, D: 1 3/4 in.

Note

The present lot, depicting the head of Joseph of Arimathea, is a favrile glass mosaic panel completed by the Tiffany Glass and Decorated Company related to "The Entombment", an important large window displayed by the firm at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (the window later entered the collection of Hugh F. and Jeannette Genius McKean, which formed the core of the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, where it remains). The figure was modeled after Tiffany's father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, and the mosaic was also exhibited at the Columbian Exposition. A related study, in leaded glass, was exhibited at the Grafton Galleries in London in 1899 (in an exhibition organized by Siegfried Bing) and later displayed at Tiffany's home, Laurelton Hall. The present lot later hung in the stairway of the Tiffany Studios' Madison Avenue showroom before the contents of the firm were liquidated in 1936.

This lot is sold with a portfolio comprising a period photograph of the present lot mounted to board, original invoices in the Burton name from Joseph & Jacobson, Inc., Auctioneers (the designated liquidators of the Tiffany Studios inventory) including the present lot, a catalogue related to the 1936 liquidation of Tiffany Studios' inventory, approximately two dozen period photographs of the interior and exterior of Laurelton Hall, and approximately one dozen photographic reproductions of Tiffany Studios and other stained glass windows mounted to paper, board, and onionskin.

Publication History and Literature

Kelly A. Conway and Lindsy R. Parrott, et. al., Tiffany's Glass Mosaics, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, 2017, p. 224 (the present lot listed in the Tiffany mosaic chronology, with exhibition history)
Alastair Duncan, Tiffany Windows, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982, p. 107 (for an illustration and discussion of "The Entombment" window and the present lot)
Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany: Rebel in Glass, Crown, New York, 1966, pp. 96-97 (present lot illustrated)
Hugh F. McKean, The "Lost" Treasures of Louis Comfort Tiffany, Doubleday, Garden City, 1980, p. 14 (for a discussion of "The Entombment" window and the model of the figure)
Gertrude Speenburgh, The Arts of the Tiffanys, Lightner, Chicago, 1956, pp. 49, 56 (for a discussion of "The Entombment" window and the model of the figure)

Provenance

Acquired in the liquidation sale of the Louis C. Tiffany Studios, circa 1936

Christine O. Groves Burton (1893-1973), Baltimore, Maryland

Thence by descent