Tiffany's Fame in Europe

Abstract

“AMerican Art Supreme in Colored Glass,” thus did Louis Comfort Tiffany entitle an article about his own work in 1893,¹ the year of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One is inclined to pass this off as the bravura boast of a chauvinist or provincial, but on closer examination of the facts, it becomes evident that America was indeed supreme in the field of colored glass in the 1890's and, by virtue of its influence, completely transformed this art form in Europe. One learns, furthermore, that although other American firms and individuals also made colored glass,² it was the name Tiffany that signified colored glass, indeed became synonymous with the term all over the world.