Still in awe of the richly colored windows he had seen in European churches, Tiffany saw the need to improve on the typical American stained-glass window, for which pictures were painted onto

Ten years later, Tiffany abandoned painting and formed a business specializing in interior decoration. Before long, the firm was flourishing, and New York’s wealthiest residents were having their homes decorated in Tiffany’s luxurious and very costly style. Suddenly, stained-glass windows were much in demand.

Tiffany’s lifelong fascination with glass began when he was about twenty years old. At the time, he considered himself a painter (much to the disappointment of wealthy family members who assumed that he would join Tiffany & Co., the country’s finest jewelry and silver firm). Instead, he traveled to Europe to study art. While there, he found himself spellbound by the stained-glass windows that filled Europe’s medieval cathedrals with glowing color.

Many people think that the worlds of art and science are polar opposites, but the career of Louis Comfort Tiffany proves otherwise. With an artist’s sensitivity to color and a scientist’s urge to experiment, Tiffany built a hugely successful enterprise, creating thousands of stained-glass windows for homes, churches, train stations, libraries, hospitals, theaters, and even ferry boats all across the country.

About The Artist

Linda Andre

by
Louis
Flower,
Looking
&
Comfort
Fish
Learning
and

Together with his employees, Tiffany learned to make glass by mixing sand, lime, and soda together, heating it until it melted, and rolling it into flat sheets. By analyz-ing the components of cheap but vividly colored jam jars, they learned that metallic impurities in the sand could give glass a rich and vibrant color. In experiment after experiment, they added metallic powders to clear molten glass. Again and again, their mixtures failed. Finally, persistence paid off, and they were able to develop secret formulas for colored glass in several thousand different shades and textures. Soon Tiffany had a supply of 200 to 300 tons of glass carefully shelved in a cellar, ready to transform into gloriously colored windows, lamps, and vases.

clear glass. The opaque paint diminished the strength of incoming sunlight, causing the window to appear lifeless and dull. Rather than produce more mediocre painted windows, Tiffany opted for the thirteenth-century practice of making pictures out of small pieces of colored glass that let the light shine through. When he found that no commercial glassmakers could supply him with a wide range of colors and textures, he decided to manufacture colored glass himself.