Pebble and seaweed window

The seaweed and beach stones window is an early experimental example of the stained glass of Louis C. Tiffany, and it is documented as one of the earliest known windows made by Tiffany in which he employed beach-worn quartz stones for decorative effect in stained glass. As described by Emily Johnston De Forest (Mrs. Robert W. de Forest) in notes that she made on the furnishings of Wawapek:

"In the summer of 1884 Louis C. Tiffany paid us quite a long visit in H. G. de Forest’s [Robert’s brother, Henry] cottage at Montauk Point, L. I…. There we gathered translucent stones and made strange patterns with long fronds of thick brown seaweed. Louis left us with his valises filled with colored stones and the next Christmas he sent us this lovely window made with the very same stones and showing the fronds of thick brown seaweed."




In its marine theme, abstracted design, and use of beach stones, the window is an important bridge between the Bella Apartment window (2002.474) of about 1880 and the Squash/jellyfish window (2015.707) of about 1890.




The mosaic panel was presumably made as a companion piece. It, too, features an underwater motif, but in an entirely different treatment. Rather than the moody, dramatic dark and often experimental glass, the tropical fish—in some ways seen as an exploitation of the properties of Tiffany’s iridescent glass—is more explicit and even cheerful. The iridescent glass utilized to convey the water exhibits a great variety of coloration and iridescent effects. Of particular interest are the framing elements: the translucent quartz pebbles of the Seaweed panel have been replicated here in large chunks of glass with similar coloration and which have been cut away in places, smoothed in others, and given a surface treatment to give them the appearance of stones, but which would catch the reflected light.