Vase

Fredolin Kreischmann

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This vase features cased and cut decoration on a virtually colorless glass form. The blue-white opalescent rim is the result of the vessel having been reintroduced into the hot furnace. Tiffany's master of this type of ornamentation was Fredolin Kreischmann (or Kreischman), a highly skilled glass cutter and engraver whom Tiffany hired during the early years of his production of blown-glass vases. Kreischmann had perfected his technique while employed at the leading proponent of this method, the British firm Thomas Webb, in Stourbridge. In the five years that Kreischmann worked for Tiffany before his death in 1898 he created some of the most breathtaking pieces known from the firm. This vase exhibits a delicacy and fluidity not often associated with cut glass. Two of Tiffany's favorite motifs from the natural world—lily pads and Queen Anne's lace—subtly emerge from the surface. The lily pads are carved from a light spring green glass applied to the lower part of the vase, with stems of the same color seeming to float to the top of the vessel. The glass cutter has executed the delicate blossoms with exceptional skill, articulating each minute floret and rendering the blossoms from many different angles and in different states of maturity.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art