Tiffany-Style Lamps: Table, Floor and Hanging Lamps, Sizes and Glass

A Tiffany-style lamp has a shade of colored glass pieces edged in copper foil and soldered together, the method Tiffany Studios used, but it was made later or by another maker. Choose one by shade diameter and height first, then glass and base. Tiffany Studios table lamps stood about 21 to 31 inches tall.

What makes a lamp “Tiffany-style”?

The construction. The Neustadt Collection describes how Tiffany’s shades were made: each cut piece of glass was wrapped in thin copper foil, laid on a mold, soldered, then soldered again on the inside, with a brass ring at the bottom edge and a bronze or gold patina on the silver solder lines. Cooper Hewitt credits Tiffany with pioneering this copper-foil technique, which “made possible an entirely new level of detail.”

Older stained-glass windows were built another way. The V&A explains that window makers fitted each piece into “H-shaped strips of lead, called cames,” then soldered the strips together. Copper foil replaced the lead strip with a thin wrap on each piece, which is why Cooper Hewitt links it to the finer detail of Tiffany’s shades.

The name matters for a buyer. Tiffany Studios is the historical company, which used that name from 1902 to 1932. A lamp made in its manner by anyone else is Tiffany-style, and no current maker sells a new “Tiffany” lamp from that studio. Our identification guide explains how specialists tell the two apart.

What sizes did the originals come in?

Most reproductions follow the proportions of Tiffany Studios lamps, so the originals are a good size guide. These examples come from Christie’s collecting guide, the Metropolitan Museum and the Dayton Art Institute.

A 16 inch shade reads as a reading lamp on a side table. A 20 inch shade and up is a statement piece that needs a wide surface or its own corner. Measure the table’s depth before you buy: the shade should not hang over the edge where it can be knocked.

Table, floor or hanging?

Table lamps are the easiest to place and the easiest to move later. Look at the base as closely as the shade: Christie’s notes that on period lamps “the base can be as important as the shade,” and that some designs always sat on one base, such as the Wisteria on its “Tree” base.

Floor lamps carry the same shade on a tall standard, about 63 inches on the Met’s example. They suit a reading chair and need no table.

Hanging lamps hang from the ceiling like a pendant. Unlike a plug-in lamp, a hardwired hanging lamp is a job for a qualified electrician, and the ceiling box has to be rated for its weight; the chandelier guide covers that rule.

Tiffany-style table, floor and hanging lamps

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The listings above mix new reproductions and pre-owned lamps. None claims to be an authentic Tiffany Studios lamp: listings that do are excluded, because a title cannot prove it.

Which patterns are classics?

Most reproductions borrow their patterns from Tiffany Studios designs. The Dayton Art Institute credits the design of its Dragonfly lamp of about 1910 to Clara Driscoll, who ran the Women’s Glass Cutting Department. Christie’s guide names other period designs: Wisteria, Pond Lily, Daffodil, Laburnum and plain geometric shades.

Geometric shades are the plainest and, in period examples, the least expensive: Christie’s puts attractive geometric Tiffany Studios lamps from around $5,000, against millions for the rarest floral designs.

Who makes Tiffany-style lamps today?

Two American companies with long records in the category:

• Dale Tiffany of La Mirada, California, says it was founded in 1979 and within two years focused on “Tiffany-styled lamps and shades,” reproductions of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s designs.
• Meyda Tiffany of Yorkville, New York, began in 1974 as a hobby of Meyer and Ida Cohen, according to a 2014 profile in tED magazine.

When you buy new, the maker’s product page should name the glass and the base metal. For a pre-owned lamp, ask for photos of the underside of the base and any label, and check the shade for cracked or missing pieces before you bid.

Where does a Tiffany-style lamp fit in a room?

Leaded shades glow in color when lit, so they read best where they are seen from the side: a side table, a desk or beside a reading chair. They pair naturally with period rooms of the early 1900s, and with the schoolhouse and bankers lamps of the same years. For a gift, our lighting gift guide suggests small accent lamps for stained-glass lovers.

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