Table lamp "Empire", small version - after Louis C. Tiffany

The painter and glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, who was born in 1848 in New York, developed a special process for the production of the fragile material, which became known as "Tiffany Favrile glass" from 1894. The addition of metallic salts and resin solutions creates the lustrous effect of the blue-green or silvery-violet iridescent decoration running in irregular waves.

At the Paris World's Fair of 1900, he presented his luminous objects, which are today referred to as Tiffany lamps. Different coloured glass, artistically designed bronze bases and sensually erotic figures turn these utilitarian objects into works of art with a special appeal. The stemware in the form of flower calyxes, his bulbous vases, but also the famous stained glass windows bears witness to a great variety of colours and forms. The philosophical stylistic principle of the Fin de Siècle, which is combining nature and art, finds its richest execution in Tiffany's objects.

Typical of the turn of the century was the artists' endeavour to create so-called Gesamtkunstwerke (lit.: total artwork). The creative activities concerned all areas of life up to and including jewellery. This area was opened up by the son of the jewellery artist Charles Lewis Tiffany when he took over his father's jewellery business after his death in 1902. Tiffany died in New York in 1933 at the age of 84.