AN ARMCHAIR, 1890S

This chair is nearly identical to those designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated Artists for the home of Henry and Louisine Havemeyer, located at 1 East 66th Street. The interiors of the Havemeyer house were one of Louis C. Tiffany's seminal interior commissions. He formed the company with Candace Wheeler and his early painting instructor Samuel Colman in 1879. They designed lavish spaces replete with rich glass and metalwork and lush coloristic effects that subtly evoked exotic, distant lands. The firm immediately had a strong following by New York's elite. The interiors reflected the new style of the Aesthetic movement incorporating a range of influences including Celtic, Moorish, Japanese and Near Eastern. The present chair was likely made for an unknown domestic interior shortly after the Havemeyer interiors were completed.

cf. F. Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America, New York, 1986, p. 74 for an illustration of the variant chair model in the Havemeyers' library, 1892;
A.C. Frelinghuysen, et al., Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection, exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1993, pp. 182 and 183;
Louis C. Tiffany: Meisterwerke des Amerikanischen Jugendstils, exhibition catalogue, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, 1999, p. 69 for the chair in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.