Tiffany: The Four Seasons Boxed Notecard Assortment

A great master of stained glass and Art Nouveau ornament, Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848-1933) shifted America's aesthetic foundations. He began as a painter, moved on to interior decoration, then assembled a technical team to make a better leaded-glass winĄdow, pressing on even after several of his factories burned.

Tiffany brought a colorist's eye to the creation of richly hued glass--often blended in patterns that mingled or swept across the sheet with painterly fluidity. And his mind was eminently practical: he improved many of the steps in the manufacture of glass lamps, vases, and windows. Though he occasionally produced his own designs, Tiffany left most such work to others, overseeing a team of artists who fashioned the organic and romantic forms that defined Art Nouveau in America.

Inspired by a window he designed more than a dozen years earlier, Tiffany dreamed up the 18-karat Four Seasons box in 1914. Scenes of the seasons are miniature cloisonn? enamel reproductions of the quartet he created in leaded glass for the Exposition Universelle held in Paris in 1900. The center contains an assemblage of opals, tourmalines, sapphires, and chrysoprases. This spectacular work of art is in the collection of The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, in Winter Park, Florida.

Published with the Charles Hosmer Morse Foundation.