Clara and Mr. Tiffany

by Susan Vreeland

  “That’s a relief.”

  “He’s begun to pace in his room to demonstrate to the nurses that he’s well, because he wants to show us the Vanderbilt bedroom before it’s transported to Hyde Park.”

  “A good sign. Back to his own impatient self.”

  “I took him a bouquet of red carnations to urge him on. He demanded a pin to fasten one on his hospital gown, and practically devoured the rest.”

  I patted his arm, and he went on his way, a spring in his step.

  TO CELEBRATE THE SHOWING of Vanderbilt’s bedroom, George wore his fedora with the red feather. He walked faster as we approached the warehouse.

  “Slow down, George. You just got out—”

  “Of prison! White, white, nothing but white! I had to get better to get out of that colorless cube.” Just outside the carved bedroom door, he said, “Be prepared. Vanderbilt’s favorite color is red. Like Lorenzo’s.”

  With a flourish, he opened the door onto the fifteenth century. Red and gold blazed in every direction, and not a square inch went unornamented. The monumental bed was flanked by twisted columns, and gilded Corinthian capitals supported a canopy. A carved frieze, a pastoral tapestry, and a red velvet hanging stitched in gold adorned the walls. A sofa, a settee, and six chairs upholstered in red velvet had Florentine gold stitching.

  “I see the Gilded Age is still alive and well. Is this robber baron expecting to entertain in his bedroom?”

  “Yes. Just like a Renaissance potentate. Isn’t it splendiferous?” George darted around the room, pointing out the sconces, porcelains, and male nudes on pedestals that he had selected.

  “Fit for a king, George.”

  But way too ornate for contemporary taste. Henry Belknap would swoon under the overpowering weight of it. After his assessment of my work, I had thought that maybe I belonged to Medici’s court instead of Tiffany’s, but now I saw that I didn’t. There was no place to rest one’s eyes in this room, just like the drawing of my poor, tortured clock.

  Saving the thing he was most proud of for last, George whisked away the sheet covering the wood panels carved from his fanciful drawings of faces and animals peeking out from dense foliage. It was a game to find each one. A man with rabbit ears was winking as if to say, “Aha, you found me. Aren’t I funny?” Two wizened women had their arms around each other, one crying and the other laughing uproariously. A boy was doing a handstand, his mouth shaping a perfect O as though surprised by the look of things upside down.

  George turned in a circle, hands on his head. I understood the excitement of having one’s concepts executed in the final medium.

  “The rest of the room is work for a patron. You did what he wanted. But these panels are the true you, George. A marvel of whimsy.”

  I had never seen him happier.

  A NOISY PARADE of five Palmié sisters, Alice, and I pedaled our wheels on the boardwalk of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. It was nothing more than boards laced together and laid temporarily upon the dunes, to be rolled up in winter. It made our insides jiggle. The fresh salt air was a tonic, and the call of seabirds invigorated us. We came back through the woods to their family’s summer cottage on the beach, and had a supper of fish their father had caught. We capped off the day with a sail by moonlight.

  The next morning we put on our scanty bathing costumes. What an exhilarating feeling to have nothing around our calves but air! How many sensations had we been missing out on since Alice and I had lifted our school jumpers to wade in Ohio’s streams? Now we dared each other to take another step into the cold sea—calves, knees, hips, waist. I made a wild, splashy imitation of swimming a short distance. Then we took a walk.

  “Look!” I cried.

  “It’s Queen Anne’s lace,” Lillian said.

  “Or wild carrot, if you’re a naturalist type.”

  “What’s the difference? A weed’s a weed,” Marion said.

  Clusters of tiny white flowers grew out from a single point on the stalk like a burst of fireworks.

  “They do remind me of lace,” Lillian observed.

  “Oh, they’re just another kind of dandelion,” Marion rejoined.

  “They’d be simple to draw.”

  “No!” Marion wailed. “This is supposed to be a vacation from work.”

  “We never think about work when we’re here,” Lillian said.

  “But you don’t have to keep a department of thirty girls working.”

  Here could be the answer to Mr. Mitchell’s demand for simpler, smaller, cheaper items.

  “Lillian, do you think you could use a stalk of this as a motif for a candlestick? The little cup holding a candle could be a mature cluster curling in on itself, and a tall, slim rod could represent the stalk, and over the disk of the base, you could carve the roots spread out like wiggly spokes of a wheel. What do you think?”

  She kept looking at the blossoms I was picking, and I thought I had her.

  “I’ll answer you on Monday.”

  AND ON MONDAY she said yes.

  Over the next few weeks she designed two styles of wild-carrot candlesticks, both of them lovely and delicate. I was as proud of her as a mother hen. Meanwhile I used the same motif for a bronze ink pot. I resisted fancifying it with a single mosaic. Now Mr. Mitchell had three quick moneymakers, and I could finish designing my peacock lamps.

  The next weekend Point Pleasant was teeming with poppies. Their crepe-paper petals fluttered and beckoned seductively in saturated vermilion, the Vanderbilt red, bright enough to put out your eyes, with enough variation that we could use marbled and mottled glass. We picked them madly, as in a pagan dance, and carried large bunches home.

  At my worktable the next day, I vowed to make this shade simple, but the blossoms had intricate black stamens like spokes around a closed yellow pistil. They wouldn’t be identifiable as poppies without the ring of stamens. There was no way around it. They had to be made as metal filigree overlays in the same method as the dragonfly wings. My mind couldn’t be regimented into plainness. Even though I simplified the petal shapes, they absolutely cried out for an irregular border of leaves at the bottom, which meant painstaking pins. For the sake of harmony, the leaves had to have subtle filigree veins attached on the inside of the glass. And there I was with another elaborate design.

  I promised myself that the next lamp would be simple. What should it be? Cyclamen, with its petals aloft like wings in flight? Peony, a nest of petals enfolding something precious? The humble geranium? The stately iris? The hanging begonia? One idea propelled me to another. I was intoxicated by summer, on fire with flowers.

  AT SUMMER’S END, two white buck shoes and two short white linen trouser legs came in the doorway below a huge bouquet of voluptuous peonies topped by a white fedora. Mr. Tiffany had slipped into our studio without warning us with his cane. A little flustered, I hurried to lay out all of our work.

  “Time enough for that in a few minutes. I have an announcement.”

  The instant Mr. Tiffany said that, the girls set down their tools and turned to him. Agnes stood by the door to her studio.

  “I’m happy to tell you that the Four Seasons windows received much admiration at the Paris Exposition Universelle, so you should be very proud. Miss Northrop’s magnolia window received a Diploma of Merit.”

  Congratulations ensued, and enthusiastic clapping of hands.

  “And …” Mr. Tiffany paused for dramatic effect, milking the moment. Barnum would have done the same. “Mrs. Driscoll’s dragonfly lamp received a Bronze Medal.”

  The room exploded with applause.

  “That should make you feel pretty good, eh?”

  “I do. I feel I’ve taken quite a journey.”

  Delicately, I inquired about any awards for him by asking about other departments.

  With a flash of sheepishness that disappeared into sparkling blue eyes, he said, “I was awarded the Grand Prize for my Favrile glass pieces, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France.”
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  More applause, although I knew some of the girls had no idea what that award signified. I clapped louder and longer than anyone.

  He didn’t say that Arthur Nash got any recognition, which made me wonder whether the Bronze Medal was granted to me or to the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company or to Louis Comfort Tiffany, artist, but for the moment, he was pleased with me, and euphoria bubbled up in me deliriously.

  After he looked at all that we had accomplished during his absence, he beckoned me into my studio and closed the door behind us.

  “When the exposition is over, Siegfried Bing is taking all of the Favrile glass vases, the dragonfly lamp, some blown lamps, and some windows from the exhibition for his Salon de l’Art Nouveau to sell throughout Europe.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “But I have to keep him supplied. Europe is a big continent. I expect to be inundated with window commissions in our own cities, so I’m increasing the size of the Men’s Window Department to two hundred.”

  Why was he telling me that? Thoughtless braggadocio?

  “Make eight more wisteria lamps for Bing’s gallery.”

  “Gladly. The new ones won’t be exactly the same. I’ll have selectors develop their own color schemes.”

  “All the better. I don’t like to think of myself as running a factory that produces look-alike art, but I’ve set things in motion and have to proceed.”

  This was the right moment to show him the poppy design. “I thought you’d like it because of the deep colors.”

  “Yes, I do. Always intensify the colors. The small bronze items are well executed and just as important, so I want more. They’ll reach more middle-class homes. Even small items can express ideal beauty.”

  Mr. Mitchell had given him an earful. I felt the conversation shift.

  “Who did the poppy watercolor?”

  “Alice Gouvy.”

  “She’s the one who did the enamel primrose base?”

  “Yes. She’s very talented.”

  “Who designed the Queen Anne’s lace items?”

  “I did the ink pot, and Lillian Palmié did the candlesticks.”

  “Very good indeed. They fit in to my new direction.”

  I felt myself stiffen. “With you, there’s always a new direction. You’re irrepressible. What do you have up your sleeve now?”

  “Lalique got a lot of attention in Paris with his enamels. I’ve been experimenting with enamel too, on copper. Those pieces in which I used gold and silver foil under the enamel were well received. I’ve installed a larger enameling kiln in the factory than the one in my home studio, so now I’m ready to open a small enameling department. I want Miss Gouvy to be the head of it.”

  I went cold to the lips. “She’ll be working—”

  He didn’t look at me. “In Corona.”

  The word shattered the elation in the air as though it were glass.

  “Give me ten minutes and then send her down to my office. When she comes back, send the Palmié girl.”

  “But Lillian has never done enameling.”

  He turned on me a look one would give to an ignoramus. “She will learn. We are all continuing students of art.” His imperious tone cut me to the bone. “I saw some beautiful French ceramics too.”

  “I’m sure you did.” And I’m sure he caught the sarcasm in my voice.

  “Soon we’ll expand into ceramics. I want Miss Patricia Gay and Miss Lucy Lantrup for that.”

  “You’re impoverishing my department!”

  He raised his shoulders. “Hire more.”

  ALICE AND I WALKED home in a maelstrom of resentment.

  “He didn’t give me a choice,” she fumed.

  “He’s on top of the world now, and nothing is going to get in his way. He’s teeming with ideas. He wants to transcend himself with each new medium.”

  “But he’s so authoritarian,” Alice said.

  “Autocratic.”

  “Self-important.”

  “Self-consumed.”

  “Vainglorious.”

  “Omnivorous.”

  “Obsessed.”

  “Masterful.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “But flawed as a human being,” I said.

  I wanted to scream or tear something to show that I felt ripped in two. Despite the truth of our character assassination, I adored him. He and I had a bridge that no one else traveled that made us artistic lovers, passionate without a touch of the flesh. He made me thrive, and valuing that, I could do nothing that would endanger it.

  At dinner, Alice announced my award. I announced her new assignment. She played with her food and didn’t eat. In my room, I played with my kaleidoscope and watched the pieces crash.

  CHAPTER 28

  WISTERIA

  HANK CAME BACK FROM PARIS EARLY IN SEPTEMBER SPORTING a dragoon’s mustache.

  “How were the reviews?” I asked at dinner, halfheartedly, wilted from the third day of blazing heat and astronomical humidity.

  “He was hailed as a genius who could achieve unlimited effects in glass.”

  “But did he achieve the Tiffany Imperative?” Bernard asked.

  “I believe we can say he was a match for his father this time. I have to tell you, though, that he exhibited under his own name, not the company name.”

  “Oh, you troublemaker!” Dudley said. “Did you have to bring that up?”

  “The newspapers reported that the awards were won by Louis Comfort Tiffany, but as a journalist, I got hold of the jurists’ report. Your name was listed as designer of the dragonfly lamp.”

  He handed it to me, and there I was. And Arthur Nash too. And Agnes.

  “So he did have to divulge our names after all.”

  “Not to the press.”

  “Oh, no, never to the press. What would it have cost him to share one ounce of glory? What’s the point of winning an award if he keeps it a secret?”

  Alice lowered her head, George pursed his lips, Merry clucked her tongue, and Bernard gave me a look filled with compassion, holding my frustration in his eyes until I looked away.

  “A few critics weren’t entirely enthusiastic,” Hank admitted. “Maybe, Miss Lefevre, you could translate? I’ve marked the passage.”

  “All my teaching, and you still—”

  “To get it exact.”

  “D’accord.”

  “Monsieur Tiffany went awry in one ecclesiastical window in particular. The Flight of Souls, intended to inspire, comes across as cold, melancholy, and gloomy despite its use of his justly famous glass. However, the lower part of this window was taken up by flowers, which served as a pretext to introduce elements of color, and this part shows him to much better advantage because he does not try to serve ideas or sentiment but lets the magic of his material speak in its own right.”

  “I don’t know this window,” I said. “It must have been made in the men’s department.”

  “Here’s a mention in International Studio,” said Hank.

  “I have hinted at the commercialism of this big American concern; it is time to define it more closely. Tiffany certainly does not aim to place himself in the center of Morris & Company’s Arts and Crafts Movement in educating public taste and eschewing mass production. His aim is to sell, to persuade, not to elevate.”

  “Oh, he’s going to feel the sword behind that pen,” I said.

  “It continues. ‘But no commercial considerations are allowed to stand in the way of the alert curiosity of the highly gifted artist who is the soul as well as the owner of the company.’ ”

  “So long as Boss Mitchell and Boss Platt are gagged and locked in their offices at Tiffany Hall,” I said.

  Alice grunted. Polite, feminine Alice definitely grunted.

  There was no cooling off indoors, so after dinner some of us went up to the roof to catch any errant breeze, taking wet washcloths to dampen our necks as we sat on a long bench surrounded by chimneys and rooftop water tanks with their curious coolie-hat lids.


  “Too hot to talk,” Mr. York said.

  “Too hot to think,” said Dudley. “I’m sweating like a prostitute in church.”

  In a stupor we waited until our rooms cooled off enough to sleep. One by one, the others ventured downstairs to try them out until only Bernard and I were left in the twilight.

  “So winning the award means nothing to you?” he ventured to ask.

  “It means a great deal to me, but exhibiting everything under his own name is wrong.”

  “Even though your products are collaborative?”

  “Granted, they all are, even across departments. The metalworkers, I mean. He can’t name all those who did some work on dragonfly, but everything we produce has a designer, and it’s not always Tiffany. That lamp was my concept from the beginning through every stage. If he didn’t want to name his designers publicly, then he should have used the company name on his pavilion.”

  “And you’re hurt by this.”

  “He called leaded-glass lampshades our secret from the first glimmer of the idea. At that moment it meant let’s just keep it to ourselves until the right time to develop them. Regardless of his intent, the result is that it remains a secret that he didn’t design that lamp. A secret that I exist.”

  Minutes passed without a word, and I appreciated him at my side to absorb my resentment.

  Eventually he said, “I grew up in Gloucester in southwest England. As a boy, I was enchanted by the stained-glass windows in our cathedral, never thinking I would ever come to know someone who made them. On rare sunny days, they sparkled like jewels, and spots of color danced over the floor and pews.”

  “You thought that then?”

  “I imagined that your lamps shoot out colors too, so I went to the showroom recently to have a look.”

  “You were there when I was upstairs?”

  “I had no right to disturb you.”

  “What did you see?”

  “The butterflies, the fish, and the dragonflies. Stunning, Clara. Your lamps will last through the ages, and will come to be valued as treasures from our time, worth far more than you can imagine now. I know this. I’m an importer.”