Lot 114 · Private Treaty

Tiffany Studios leaded favrile glass window depicting a mermaid among kelp — Photographed backlit at 5000K to reveal the iridescent favrile surface.

The Mermaid Window

A monumental leaded glass panel from Tiffany Studios, in which a mermaid rests among kelp fronds rendered in drapery and rippled favrile glass. The water behind her is built from more than nine hundred individually selected pieces — no paint, no enamel; every gradient is glass chosen for its own colour.

Maker: Tiffany Studios, New York
Date: circa 1900
Medium: Leaded favrile, drapery & opalescent glass
Dimensions: 182 × 118 cm (71¾ × 46½ in.)
Signature: Impressed bronze tablet, lower right
Condition: Excellent; original lead came, no releading

Estimate

$1,800,000 – 2,400,000

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Macro detail of iridescent favrile glass with lead came seams

The Glass

Colour held inside the material

Favrile glass was patented by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1894: metallic oxides were introduced while the glass was still molten, so iridescence sits within the body rather than on its surface. Under raking light the kelp shifts from olive to bronze, and the deep water reads almost black until the sun crosses it.

Provenance

c. 1900Commissioned for a private residence, Long Island, New York.
1948Passed by descent within the founding family.
1976Removed during renovation; placed in climate-controlled storage.
2009Conservation survey; stabilised in a bronze display armature.
PresentOffered from a private European collection.