Cleveland Museum of Art
Nautilus Reading Lamp
Tiffany Glass & Decorating CompanyLinkedCulture matchlcp-bf9d514eef54
- Date
- c. 1899–1902
- Medium
- bronze, leaded glass
- Culture
- America, early 20th Century
- Department
- Decorative Art and Design
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 160037
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
Benjamin Hubbell, the architect of the Cleveland Museum of Art, acquired this vase from Louis Comfort Tiffany, with whom he collaborated on various projects. The shape of the nautilus shell provides the perfect space to conceal a light bulb, the newest form of technology at the time. As a result, this lamp was a critical success and sold both in this original form and with the later alteration of a bronze mermaid for the stand and an actual nautilus shell for the shade. A lamp of this design was first featured in Siegfried Bing's 1899 display of Louis Comfort Tiffany's designs at the Grafton Galleries in London then in Tiffany's own stand at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Bequest of Virginia Hubbell
- Provenance
- ?-1997: Virginia Hubbell [1901-1997], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1997-: The Cleveland Museum of Art
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