Wisteria lamp, designed by Clara Driscoll c. 1901.
Today, exquisite, instantly recognizable Tiffany lamps and other stained-glass art nouveau masterpieces fetch hundreds of thousands at auction. Louis Comfort Tiffany originally claimed credit, but many works were actually created by female artists led by head designer Clara Driscoll.
In 1892, Driscoll was named supervisor of the Women’s Glass Cutting Department, known as the “Tiffany Girls.” For the first time, women were allowed to cut out patterns and select glass for windows and mosaics; by 1897, about 40 of the most skilled female artisans were creating meticulous preparatory drawings known as cartoons. There was constant turnover, because the department would not employ married women.
Proud of her work, Driscoll wrote in an 1899 letter to her family, “There are three hundred square feet of small pieces of glass to be accomplished. There is nothing like having enough work to do and feeling able to do so.” That year, Tiffany sold the first electric lamp with a stained-glass base and shade. The lamps became coveted collectors’ items.
It was the women artists’ idea to make lamp shades from pieces of glass left over from window manufacturing. In 1900, Tiffany Studios’ Dragonfly lampshade, Driscoll’s design, earned a bronze medal at the Paris world’s fair. But in company literature, Tiffany credited only himself.
We know this because surviving along with painterly glass artifacts are thousands of Driscoll’s letters detailing her creations and those of her staff. The letters discovered in the early 2000s at the Queens Historical Society described Driscoll’s Gilded Age life: She lived in a Manhattan boarding house, rode her bicycle, and shopped at Lord & Taylor and Wanamaker’s, as electricity lit the city and the new subway rumbled underground. Her letters also contained sketches, designs for which she would not get credit, including the magnificent 2,000-piece Wisteria Lamp inspired by the lush lavender-hued plants cascading atop the pergola at Tiffany’s Long Island estate.
- In 1987, Kenneth Branagh asked you to direct Much Ado About Nothing for the Renaissance Theatre Company. It was to be your first foray into directing.
- [Laughs] Peter Hall persuaded me to do it. He said it would be good for me to understand acting from the other side.
Ken was so naughty. I'm amazed we're still friends. He played Benedick, and in the Gulling Scene I had him sitting in the middle of these four orange fruit trees while Paddy [Patrick] Doyle, who wrote the music, sang 'Sigh no more, ladies'. Paddy would finish the first verse, and just at the point when he was about to start the second, Ken would mutter under his breath, 'Oh Christ.' [Laughs.] In the end, I had to say to Ken, 'I do not want to hear you say "Oh Christ", "Oh Jesus", "Oh God" ever again during Paddy's beautiful song.' He was very good, Ken - and he's a lovely man - but so mischievous.
From Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea