Drawn in Light, The Met Shows Tiffany's Studio Drawings on Fifth Avenue
Nearly 120 watercolor designs for windows, lamps and mosaics open October 22, many of them by women and émigrés the Tiffany name long outshone
Before a Tiffany window glowed, someone had to draw it. On October 22, the Metropolitan Museum of Art puts those drawings on the wall.
*Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany* opens in Galleries 691 to 693 at the Met Fifth Avenue and runs through February 7, 2027, according to National Jeweler. The museum's curator says the Met owns the largest collection of Tiffany design drawings anywhere, and this is the show built from it.
The Hands Behind the Glass
The show gathers nearly 120 works, mostly from the Met's own holdings with a small group of loans, per City Life Org. The drawings were made for commissions in homes, churches, theaters and public buildings. Many reached beyond the United States, to Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Switzerland.
The most interesting part is who drew them. The exhibition highlights the designers around Louis C. Tiffany who were often uncredited. City Life Org names Frederick Wilson, who trained in Britain, and Jacob Holzer, who was born in Switzerland. It also names Agnes Northrop, Clara Driscoll and Julia Munson. National Jeweler notes that many of the studio's artists were émigrés and women.
Many of the studio's artists were émigrés and women.
The curator, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen of the American Wing, calls the Met's holdings "the largest collection of Tiffany design drawings anywhere." Barbara Veith, a research associate in the American Wing, co-organized the exhibition.
Drawings Beside the Real Thing
The galleries set the paper next to the finished work. National Jeweler reports that watercolor designs hang beside stained-glass windows, mosaics, enamelwork and lamps. City Life Org says three thematic galleries cover domestic interiors, ecclesiastical settings, and public and commercial commissions, along with Tiffany's work in lighting.
Two examples stand out in National Jeweler. One is a watercolor for a poppy lampshade from around 1900, likely by Clara Driscoll, though possibly by Alice C. Gouvy. The other is Agnes F. Northrop's *Four Seasons* design and window for Burrwood, the Cold Spring Harbor, New York, estate of the Standard Oil executive Walter B. Jennings.
There is also a reunion. The Chrysler Museum of Art is lending the stained-glass window *Woman in a Pergola with Wisteria*, from 1911. Its original wisteria transoms were recently found in a private home in Arizona, and the museum says the ensemble is being shown together for the first time in at least half a century.
Drawings That Outlived the Rooms
Not everything on paper made it into the world. Both outlets say many drawings record works that were later lost, damaged or destroyed, and some show designs that were never built. For those pieces, the watercolor is the only trace of the room.
The museum also treats the paper as a story about care. National Jeweler quotes the museum saying the show "celebrates the decades-long conservation initiative that restored them to their full beauty." Tiffany & Co. sponsors the exhibition. A fully illustrated catalogue by Frelinghuysen and other authors comes from the Met, with funding from the Barrie A. and Deedee Wigmore Foundation, per City Life Org.
What to Know Before You Go
The show is at the Met Fifth Avenue, Galleries 691 to 693, October 22 to February 7, 2027. National Jeweler says entry is included with museum admission. For more on the Met's fall fashion and design programming, see our story on the new Costume Art galleries.
The windows made the name. The drawings, finally, make the credits.
