History of Tiffany Lamps

A Tiffany lamp is a type of lamp with a stained glass shade. It is generally considered part of the Art Deco movement. The first Tiffany lamp was created in 1899 with a brass base and was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Tiffany was an American artist and designer who is best known for his work in stained glass and is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau movement. Tiffany was a painter and interior decorator and designed stained glass windows and lamps, glass mosaics, blown glass, ceramics, jewelry, enamels and metalwork.

The genius behind Tiffany lamps was extremely innovative and single-handedly reintroduced stained glass to the secular world. Tiffany came up with an idea to merge into a single body bits and pieces of discarded glass thrown off from production of his stained glass windows to form beautiful decorative lamps. Much of his company's production was in making stained glass windows. The diversity in color and design makes Tiffany lamps so endearing and appealing. Tiffany, as an artist, wanted to bring decorative arts to the same status as fine arts, thus allowing the ethereal aesthetic of his work to enter the daily and domestic realm of the time.

A Chance Encounter
An interesting anecdote about Tiffany involves the father of electricity. It's been said that while lighting the first movie theatre, Tiffany collaborated with Thomas Edison, who further suggested making electric fixtures together. Very soon Tiffany began to create lamps, making them as small versions of his exquisite stained-glass windows.

Highs and Lows
The onset of the 20th Century saw a widespread popularity of Tiffany lamps. This popularity began to fade during the First World War and the Jazz Age, but, like most everything else, came to halt during the Great Depression and World War II, as the style was considered too ornate for the times and the newly emerging art styles. However, Tiffany lamps started regaining popularity in the 1950s and have continued to impress and remain popular up to the present.