Tiffany’s approach to leaded glass windows was that of a painter, and this was a natural outgrowth of his early training and his aspiration to become a professional artist. Indeed, some of the most celebrated of his early windows—such as Feeding the Flamingoes and The Lamentation over Christ—were transcriptions of his own easel paintings into glass. Old Master paintings by Botticelli and Raphael as well as leading contemporary English and French artists ranging from William Holman Hunt to Jules Lefebre were also used as models by his firm. 



Still Life with Peonies follows in the general tradition of easel painting. The very concept of depicting a floral bouquet arranged in a vase is more in line with traditional still life painting than with window design.  Such imagery can be seen in Dutch still lifes from the seventeenth century and remained popular still in the nineteenth. Often the vases and other objects were set on magnificently draped tables, perhaps with additional cloth to enrich the background. Or, as here, they could be set in a niche, perhaps with leafy vines going up the walls to provide additional pictorial interest. Thus the design of this Tiffany window fits within a well-established pictorial tradition. 



Of particular interest is another window with white and pink peonies spilling out of a bowl. It proves to be a transcription of an 1883 oil painting by Tiffany himself, and one wonders if that is not the case here as well. (Provocatively, the geometric pattern of the tiles recalls that used for the Feeding the Flamingoes window which, as noted, was also adapted from a Tiffany painting.) 



Typical of artists trained in the second half of the nineteenth century, Tiffany valued representational art and the effects of perspective and chiaroscuro modeling. As his firm’s  publicity constantly emphasized, these effects were achieved not by enameling or staining the glass but through the careful selection of textured and marbleized glass that could recreate the same illusions. Here the use of subtly raised drapery glass for some of the petals and foliage fosters three-dimensional effects, just as the vividly marbleized glass of the vase, with the light colors at one side, suggestively intimates a globular form.



Above all else, Tiffany considered himself a colorist. In talking about his art, he emphasized that he did not want to be associated with any particular school or mode of thinking. He did not want to be classified as a Realist or as an Idealist, but as a Colorist. That is the key to understanding his art and this particular window.  Wherever possible, the colors are enriched and heightened, often surpassing what one would find in Nature. The peonies are red, but not of one tone or hue. Some are deep red, others are darker almost to purple. The green ivy leaves are shot through with yellow, and the electric blue sky is charged with variations of light and dark worthy of El Greco. Moreover, the colors are saturated to an extreme. In a telling experiment, Tiffany compared his enamels with gemstones, and found that his colors surpassed those of the natural minerals. Here too, the saturated colors surpass mere reality. 



Once a window design was established at Tiffany Studios it might be repeated or modified several times over. In this instance, there is at least one variant, an apparently later and simplified version. Although relatively the same size, the second version shows an abbreviated design, with fewer flowers, a meager vine, and a plain floor. The second version is in every way less ambitious and less work-intensive, and therefore was less expensive to produce. Ironically, while we know who ordered the second version, we do not know for whom the first window was created. Yet its complexity and richness suggest that it was a significant commission.  



- Martin Eidelberg