Tiffany on Long Island

If you're a fan of Tiffany lamps, windows, and other dishes, you may be interested in the other side of Louis Comfort Tiffany -- his paintings. Over 130 of his watercolor and oil paintings were assembled for  the Nassau Museum of Art's exhibit, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist of the Gilded Age. 

I love the simplicity of the Natilus Shell Table Lamp  

Between you and me, both my husband and I were not blown away by his paintings. Some of them do exhibit decent technical skill, but there is no striking vision or style that makes them stand out the way the artists more famous for that medium are. It may be due to the fact that he seemed to vacillate between different influences of the period, including Impressionism, the Hudson River School, and the popularity of what was called "Oriental" paintings that depicted exotic locations from the Middle East at a time when that was particularly fashionable.

Tiffany lamps

Tiffany mirror

However, it is interesting to see that he took note of some of the architectural elements he observed on his travels to incorporate into his Oyster Bay Mansion, Laurelton Hall. Unfortunately, the mansion burned down. However, this exhibit include a couple of Tiffany's paintings of his home, and the Metropolitan Museum retains its columns and entrance screen. 

The Met also has some of truly spectacular specimens of his stained glass windows, including the 3-part Garden landscape window made  for Linden Hallis that comprises over 10,000 pieces of glass.  If you make it before the end of February 2027, you can also see nearly 120 drawings for the plans for his stained glass designs in Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany

The earrings have a cover that can encase the diamond drops to make them less
temptingfor thieves when the wearer travels. The choker can convert into a bracelet. 

Of course, the Nassau Museum also has some Tiffany lamps on display. If you want to see even more of them all in one place, I'd recommend a visit to the New York Historical, which owns 100 of them. The Nassau Museum's exhibit is set up differently, though, with the lamps distributed among other glass objects from Tiffany studio and furniture of the period. 

Be sure to also catch the display of jewelry (not by Louis Comfort of his family's famous store) in the hallways part of the museum that and the three elaborate ensembles on mannequins that are meant to convey how intricate decoration and design carried over even to the fashions of that time.

These beautiful glass dishes are from Tiffany's studios. If you look closely, you'll see that flowers get stretched a bit around the rims. That's because the color was placed into the glass and got stretched as it was shaped rather than painted onto an already formed dish. Imperfect, perhaps, but still perfectly beautiful. 

The Tiffany exhibit closes on November 8, 2026. That happens to be a Museums on Us weekend, so you would be able to visit for free if you have a Bank of America card. If you don't, you can either pay the $15 regular admission or check if you library offers passes to it. Many do. 

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