Charles Lewis Tiffany established one of the world’s premier luxury brands, Tiffany & Co. His son, Louis Comfort Tiffany, earned his own reputation as the foremost American designer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Revered for his brilliant stained-glass lamps and windows, LCT, as he was called, embraced nature as a decorative theme in his designs.
When Charles Tiffany died in 1902, LCT was appointed the company’s first design director. In this role, he established the Tiffany Artistic Jewelry department in the Fifth Avenue store, where his innovative designs were created and built upon Tiffany’s long-standing heritage of craftsmanship, a tradition that continues today.
A revered painter and a leader of the Art Nouveau movement, LCT brought a distinctly American design sensibility to the jewelry and objects at Tiffany.
Inspired by the graphic disorder of nature—flowers and foliage, fruits and insects—and the varied American landscape, LCT became known for his organic designs. In his talented hands, garnets became berries with leaves of green enamel; opals in a grape motif recalled the arbors of New England; and black opals, demantoid garnets and platinum took flight in a dragonfly brooch.
A century later, his work, which is rooted in naturalism, continues to influence Tiffany designs.