bowl, Louis Comfort Tiffany

Favrile glass is an iridescent art glass designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1894. Tiffany took the old English word fabrile, which means “handcrafted,” and changed the name to favrile because he liked the sound better. Favrile glass became enormously popular and was such a success that it won first prize in the 1900 Paris Exposition.

This bowl and Ann Hamilton’s prints of the Spencer’s presepio figures imitate beautifully rendered textures but ultimately present an artifice. The colors on the rim of this Favrile glass bowl appear fractured as if covered by a hardened glaze that has small vertical cracks due to aging. But the glass bowl displays an illusion; the surface is smooth and the visual effect of the rim is caused entirely by the bowl’s iridescent color. A similar perceived texture is found in Hamilton’s printed scans of the presepio figures: while blurred in some areas, in other areas the images are hyper- illusionistic, displaying fully the physical texture of the materials from which the dolls and their clothing are made. Laura Minton, History of Art graduate student

Favrile glass is an iridescent art glass designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1894. Tiffany took the old English word fabrile, which means “handcrafted,” and changed the name to favrile because he liked the sound better. Favrile glass became enormously popular and was such a success that it won first prize in the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Favrile glass is an iridescent art glass designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1894. Tiffany took the old English word fabrile, which means “handcrafted,” and changed the name to favrile because he liked the sound better. Favrile glass became enormously popular and was such a success that it won first prize in the 1900 Paris Exposition.