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Welcome: Stained Glass Window from the Mrs. George T. Bliss House, New York

John La Farge American
1908–9
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 700
John La Farge was Louis Comfort Tiffany’s closest rival in the use of opalescent, colored, and textured glass. This window, completed the year before La Farge’s death, was one of his most complex works. Commissioned in 1908 by Mrs. George T. Bliss for her house at 9 East Sixty-Eighth Street in New York City, it features a young woman in classical garb welcoming visitors while drawing back a portiere—a replication in glass of a Chinese embroidered textile originally owned by the Bliss family. The cloisonné technique of joining together many tiny pieces of glass was used to evoke folds in the figure’s gown. Decorative panels with garlands and Pompeian ornament frame the window. The work took over a year to complete, but La Farge considered it “the finest piece of glass ever made. . . . I am proud of it beyond what I can explain.”

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Welcome: Stained Glass Window from the Mrs. George T. Bliss House, New York
  • Maker: John La Farge (American, New York 1835–1910 Providence, Rhode Island)
  • Date: 1908–9
  • Geography: Made in New York, New York, United States
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Leaded opalescent glass, cloisonne glass, copper wire, paint
  • Dimensions: 156 x 96 in. (396.2 x 243.8 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1944
  • Object Number: 44.90
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

More Artwork

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Peonies Blown in the Wind, John La Farge American, Leaded opalescent glass, American
Peonies Blown in the Wind
John La Farge
ca. 1880
Amor Caritas, Augustus Saint-Gaudens American, Bronze, gilt, American
Amor Caritas
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
1880–98, cast 1918
"Welcome": Study for a Window, John La Farge American, Graphite, fixative layer, on off-white wove paper, laid down on pulpboard, American
"Welcome": Study for a Window
John La Farge
1909
Noh Dancer, John La Farge American, Wood engraving on Japan tissue
Noh Dancer
John La Farge
ca. 1886
The Nativity, John La Farge American, Wood engraving on Japan tissue
The Nativity
John La Farge
n.d.

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