Saturday, May 19, 2012

Who was behind Tiffany lamps?

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland is a wonderful piece of historical fiction.  It is true that a woman named Clara Driscoll worked for Louis Comfort Tiffany and headed up his woman's studios from the late 1890s into the early 1900s.  She, alone, created the original "Tiffany lamp" (see photo), and never received credit until a batch of letters detailing her work were recently discovered.  This book was fascinating; what NYC was like at the last turn of the century, what life was like for a single working woman, and how Tiffany studios operated and how they made their creation.  Vreeland masterfully filled in what wasn't on record to flesh out the characters and relationships between Clara, Louis and her other friends and co-workers.

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