IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Like an Hermes scarf, a Picasso print, or a
Rolls Royce, the Tiffany lamp is today so much of a signifier –
of wealth, of culture, of connoisseurship – that we lose track of any
very extraordinary physical qualities it might possess, the thing’s real
beauty. A closer look at the Tiffany lamps on permanent display at the New York Historical Society allows one to ponder just this.
The gallery, by the accomplished British architect Eva Jiřičná, isolates the lamps on pedestals in tall glass tubes
so that they glow like fireflies, floating in clusters in the dark, still second floor gallery. They are offered up like jewels,
against mute black floors, walls and ceilings. This drama does not serve
them well. They are, in the austere surroundings, just too much. They offer too much color, too much light, and the shapes too many things woven in their shades: leaves, vines,
fruit, flower, birds, clouds butterflies. Their most distinctive features, the intricate stained glass piecework of their tops, gets lost. They are, here, over-the-top, kitsch.
Why weren’t the lamps woven into a display
about late nineteenth-century interiors or industry, or about one New York family’s
history? Isolating them like this, as precious objects
behind glass, undoes their sensuality and their utility. What quality of light did they give off in a cluttered bourgeois sitting room? How did they light patterned wallpapers or tablecloths? What shadows did they cast over someone sitting nearby, or walking by? These are household
objects. Why can’t we see them, and cherish them, as such?
Pond Lily Table Lamp, Tiffany Studios, 1900-1906. Collection of New York Historical Society.