Attr. Louis C. Tiffany Company, Associated Artists (NY, 1881-1883)

Catalogue Note: Made of wire twisted into fine patterns and accented with favrile glass jewels, this work is a fine example of the broad and widespread interest in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Asia Minor, Egypt and Syria during the second half of the nineteenth century both in the United States and Europe. While travel through the newly formed Cook's Tours or as described by Mark Twain in "Innocents Abroad," and guide books by authors such as Washington Irving, made the Near East, North Africa and Egypt more generally accessible.

Inspired by the success of a painting in 1860 entitled the Hill of the Alhambra, Grenada, by Samuel Colman who had actually traveled to Spain, his student Louis Comfort Tiffany undertook his own artistic journey that included North Africa. This sojourn fed his imagination for life.

The patterning, construction and use of materials on these screens closely associated with similar screens produced under the guidance of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Tiffany's interest in Byzantine, Migration and Oriental art throughout the 1880's culminated in his inspired creations for the Henry Osborne Havemeyer house, New York in 1890-91, and the Tiffany Chapel at the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exhibition, Chicago.

The wealth of patterns and splendor of materials found throughout the Orient suited the aesthetic taste of Tiffany's client's, who were highly influential and included well known names from among the newly rich such as Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), the art collector James Taylor Johnson, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Tiffany himself.

At the time, filigree work was part of the spirit of a unity that came together in a simple hint of the ancient Moorish style with a dash of East Indian and a Japanese finish. It was a style based on delicacy and subtlety. While both anti-modern and anti-industrial, it was championed briefly with a small group of art connoisseurs.