Tiffany Studios Important Exhibition Paperweight

Height: 4 inches

Diameter: 4 1/4 inches

Signed: 1140L L.C. Tiffany-Favrile Exhibition Piece

This vase carries the rare "Exhibition Piece" designation engraved on its base, a mark reserved exclusively for works of the highest quality produced specifically for public exhibition. Very few pieces in Tiffany's blown glass production received this distinction, and those that did represent the absolute pinnacle of what the Corona glasshouse was capable of achieving.

The compressed globular form is a showcase of the paperweight technique at its most refined. Irregular leaf and vine motifs are suspended within the glass walls, encased between layers of transparent glass in deep teal and blue. The internal decoration reads as purple and violet leaf forms trailing through the body, with areas of green and silver emerging where the glass shifts in tone. The composition is organic and asymmetrical, no two views of this vase reveal the same arrangement.

Paperweight glass was among the most technically demanding of all Tiffany's blown glass production. Each piece required the gaffer to build up the internal decoration layer by layer, encasing the design between successive gathers of molten glass without disturbing what had already been laid down. The margin for error was virtually nonexistent, a single miscalculation in temperature or timing would destroy the entire piece. For a vase to survive this process and then be selected for the "Exhibition Piece" designation speaks to the extraordinary level of execution achieved here.

This is an important and exceptionally rare example of Tiffany's most advanced blown glass work.