Parakeets and Gold Fish
Bowl Stained Glass Window
--(1892) by Louis Comfort
Tiffany Studios, exhibited in
Manufactures & Liberal Arts
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Feeding the Flamingoes
Stained Glass Window
--by Louis Comfort
Tiffany Studios, exhibited in
Manufactures & Liberal Arts
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Tiffany Chapel
--by Louis Comfort
Tiffany Studios, exhibited in
Manufactures & Liberal Arts
Building, 1893 Exposition.
The brand name of Tiffany achieved international fame due to its "million dollar exhibit," as some termed the hundreds of original sterling silver and glass art works that Louis Comfort Tiffany and his father exhibited in the space before his father's jewelry booth in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Others claimed it was "the greatest display of 19th Century American silver the world had ever seen."
As recognizable as Tiffany stained glass works are still today, what most people do not know is that the younger Tiffany's display included 39 pieces by women, including 20 sketches by the "Tiffany Girls" employed in the Women's Glass Cutting Department at the Tiffany Studio. In fact, a number of women designers were often responsible for the design and creation of the stained glass products that were sold under the Tiffany label and usually credited to Louis Comfort Tiffany.
The supervisor of the Women's Glass Cutting Department was a woman from Ohio--Clara Driscoll(1861-1944)--who designed many of the famous Tiffany lamps, earning her $10,000 a year-- an astounding sum for women in 1892! Tiffany girls had to be unmarried, but no matter how many times Driscoll left his company to get engaged or married (three times!), Tiffany was more than ready to hire her back, with a promotion each time, after each relationship failed.
Probably the foremost female artist at the Tiffany Studios for five decades was Agnes Fairchild Northrop, a New Yorker, who designed most of the Tiffany's floral and landscape windows.
Samples of their work and that of several other Tiffany women designers (plus a couple non-Tiffany designers) who exhibited their stained glass sketches and artwork in the Women's Building are included below.
Autumn Land--
by Agnes F. Northrop,
(1857-1953)
exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Sketch for Stained Glass Window
--by Agnes F. Northrop,
(1857-1953)
exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Wisteria Lamp
--
by Clara Driscoll,
(1861-1944)
exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Massachusetts
Mothering the
Coming Woman
of Liberty,
Progress, and
Light
by
Elizabeth Parsons,
Edith Blake
Brown, and
Ethel Isadore
Brown--exhibited
at east end of
Assembly Room,
Woman's Building,
1893 Exposition.
Deep Sea Lamp Base
--by Clara Driscoll,
Agnes F. Northrop,
and Alice Gouvy,
exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
The Fairy Queen [alternate
title: The Queen of the Elves] by
Marie Herndl (1859-1912)--exhibited in
the Woman's Building, 1893 Exposition.
Cartoon for memorial window
by Helen Maitland Armstrong
(1869-1948)
--exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Stained glass window
--by Cecilia Boklund,
exhibited in Swedish
section, Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
Cartoon for Stained Glass Window
by Mary Elliott McDowell (1838-1917)--
exhibited in Woman's Building, 1893 Exposition.
Suggestion for Reredos by Louise Howland Cox
--
exhibited in Woman's Building, 1893 Exposition.
For more information, see Louise Howland Cox.
Fall and Spring by Lydia Fields Emmet
--
exhibited in Woman's Building, 1893 Exposition.
For more information, see Lydia Fields Emmet.
Sketch for stained glass window
by Lydia Fields Emmet
--exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
For more information, see
Lydia Fields Emmet.
Sketch for Stained Glass Window
by Clara Weaver Parrish
--exhibited in Woman's
Building, 1893 Exposition.
For more information, see
Clara Weaver Parrish.
Russell/Martindale Meserole Stained Glass Window
by Ella Condie Lamb (for J. & R. Lamb Studios)
--exhibited in Woman's Building, 1893 Exposition.
For more information,
see Ella Condie Lamb.
Spring
by Frances (Fanny) Darby
Sweeny (1855-1920)
(for her Decorative Glass Co.)
--exhibited in west window
of Ladies Parlor, Pennsylvania
State Building, 1893 Exposition.
Titled "Woman with horn"
by
"artist unknown". However, it is
clearly Fanny Sweeny's Spring
with the head cut out and a
different one substituted.
Unidentified, but clearly a segment of
Fanny Sweeny's Spring
showing the substitute head.
Music
by Clara Parrish
--representative work.
Making Cartoons for Stained
Glass Windows,
Tiffany Studio, 1894.
Go to Mary Cassatt's Lost Murals
Return to Women's Public Art & Architecture: Women's Building, p. 1
Return to Site Index
Text written by K. L. Nichols
Painting, top of page: Frances C. Jones,
Eastern Veranda of the Woman's Building Looking
toward
the Illinois Building, World's Columbian Exposition (1893)
Return to Nichols Home Page
Suggestions/Comments: knichols11@cox.net
Posted: 4-15-15; Updated: 5-12-20
