This exhibition in the Museum’s Watson Library complements Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany, on view in Galleries 691–693, October 22, 2026–February 7, 2027. Featuring a selection of advertising pamphlets published at the height of the studios’ success, between 1896 and 1922, these evocative, illustrated publications—just a sample of the many materials produced by the firm—demonstrate Tiffany’s cultivation of a compelling brand. They also reveal the expert marketing skills learned from his father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of the renowned jewelry and silver enterprise, Tiffany & Co., that sustained his flourishing business.
The purpose of the publications was two-fold: to engage potential customers, and to document and promote the full scope of the studios’ artistic production—from stained-glass windows, mosaics, and lamps to complete interiors for religious, domestic, and public buildings. Pamphlets that aimed to educate, for example, with historical essays on medieval stained-glass windows or Roman mosaics also positioned Tiffany’s studios as heir to these craft traditions. Pamphlets illustrated with captioned photographs of design drawings or finished works offered evidence of the quantity, geographic range, and variety of commissions undertaken by the studio, while serving as visual aids for customers shopping from afar, helping them to envision their environment. One publication includes photographs of artisans and designers in their workshops, providing behind-the-scenes glimpses of artistic production that amplify the wide array of media and styles in which they worked, while also marketing a sense of enduring craftsmanship.
Many of the works are drawn from the digitized collection of Tiffany Publications and Ephemeral Materials accessible through the Thomas J. Watson Library Digital Collections.
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