The first of his lamps were constructed by soldering pieces of cut, colored glass that was left over from some stained glass windows he had made years earlier. Using a carbide glass cutter and breaker-grozier pliers to break and finish the glass pieces in a controlled fashion. Tiffany would cut the various types and colors of glass according to the pattern he designed.

After cutting the glass, Tiffany would thoroughly clean each piece and apply copper foil to the edges. Once the copper foil was applied and the pieces were laid out according to the pattern design, Tiffany would solder each piece together, creating an end-piece that was a solid weld. The technique Tiffany used was called the Copper Foil Method, which allowed the melted copper foil to encase the edge of every piece of glass, creating a lamp shade that consisted of a single, solid wire. A final cleaning was done after the soldering to remove any dust or solder residue and bring out the vibrant colors of the glass pieces.

Today it is very difficult to find an authentic Tiffany lamp, especially with some going for $2 million dollars on the auction block. The authentic Tiffany Lamps are well worth the money some would spend on them. After all they have lasted over 100 years and for anything made of glass that is quite a feat.

If 2 million big ones is not your cup of tea though, there are many Tiffany-inspired lamps on the market for far less. Tiffany lamps come in a wide variety ranging through table lamps, wall sconces, chandeliers, torchieres, or hanging lamps. Characterized by the stained glass hoods and decorative bases, the Tiffany Lamps have beat the test of time and have given us an easy, artistic way to brighten our homes and offices with colorful designs from years past.

Not only was Louis Comfort Tiffany the first to design lamps to become part of the fine art movement called Art Nouveau, but he also developed his own method for staining the glass. This process of melting down glass and adding various chemicals to create specific colors was patented as Favrile, derived from a French word meaning handcrafted.

It’s no wonder that Louis Comfort Tiffany was successful, as the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany – the founder of Tiffany & Co. the world-renowned jewelry store.

The Tiffany legacy lives on through their dedication to superior products and service.

Offered in a wide variety of colors the Wisteria Tiffany lamps were remarkable in every case. Beginning with the Tree Trunk bronze base and working its way up to the opening of the Wisteria steams and petals that drape down the sides. Viewing this Tiffany lamp conjures feelings of solitude and security. The way each piece of glass cascades down the shade catching every glimpse of light, it looks much like a waterfall of vibrant colors.

Many people when they come in contact with one of Tiffany’s Wisteria designs remember a simpler time in childhood when you could find a wisteria, weeping willow or other similar tree and huddle beneath the curtain of leaves and flowers. The memory of the aroma of summer grass and flowers follows these lamps wherever they go.

Invite one of the Wisteria design Tiffany lamps into your home and you will always be a light switch away from an escape from the world. Louis Comfort Tiffany’s goal was to use the beauty of nature in his art and to invite that art into every home. Tiffany hit the nail on the head with this series of designs.

Although the Tiffany lamp series is called Wisteria, it is not limited to the Wisteria pattern. Included are the Cherry Tree, Laburnum, Flowering Lotus, Butterflies, Nasturtium, and Dragonfly. The irregular lower border of these Tiffany lamps is what set them apart from not only the other Tiffany lamps, but all other lamps. These are the only lamps to be offered without a straight circular bottom edge.

A few of the flowered dome designs simply took a geometric design such as the Plain Squares pattern and added floral designs that circled around the bottom edge. Many of the designs were far more intricate though. For example the infamous Daffodil and Dragonfly designs are from the Flowered Dome category.

To help explain how intricate some of these Tiffany lamp shades were, we will dissect a couple of the patterns, beginning with the Tulip. This shade consists of blue, green, red and purple glass and no two pieces are cut the same. There are approximately 20 tulips encasing this Tiffany shade, half of which are purple and the other half red. Each tulip has 3-4 petals and over 100 pieces of green glass for the leaves and stems. Lastly there are at least 50 pieces of blue sky.

The Oriental Poppy design is one of the most intricate of the Tiffany flowered domes. This shade has well over 1000 pieces of glass ranging from blues, to reds, to oranges, and to greens. The only thing that is vaguely simple about this Tiffany design is the single row of geometric rectangles that border the bottom edge – beyond that no two pieces are cut the same and very few are even the same shade as the others.

The process that makes the Tiffany lamp possible is the Copper Foil Method of placing copper foil around every single piece of cut and cleaned glass, then soldering them all together – creating a single wire weld that encompasses the entire shade. If it were not for this method Tiffany would have never been able to create some of these intricate designs and his famous lamps would not have lasted through the test of time.

Tiffany took the concept of the flowered dome designs and made them more symmetrical by adding geometric borders to the tops and bottoms of most of the designs. Many patterns even took a floral design and repeated it around the lamp.
The flowered cones have straight sides stretching down toward a circular shade base. As this cone design was easier to produce than the domes, there were a great deal more of the cone designs manufactured than the domes.

The Lily Pad, Grape, Water Lily and Arrowroot are some of the designs that were exclusive to the Tiffany lamp flowered cones. The Arrowroot design is a classic example of the flowered cone series. Consisting of only five colors this design is able to bend nature into a symmetrical ring. With 16 arrowroot plants lining the shade, each consisting of 6 pieces of cut green glass and a backdrop of white flowers with yellow centers and blue sky peeking through the tops.

The Dragonfly design is one of the most famous Tiffany lamp designs for good reason. Not only is the Dragonfly design beautiful, it is intricate with thousands of tiny pieces of glass welded together to form the wings of dragonflies. From a distance the wings appear to be four pieces of glass laid just right to form the wings. Upon closer inspection though, each wing is made up of about 50 – 100 small pieces of glass, so that the welds form the veins are that barely visible on a real dragonfly’s wings.

Tiffany’s flowered cone designs prove that you can bring together the two very different worlds of nature and symmetry.