TIFFANY STUDIOS, CIRCA 1905

Louis Comfort Tiffany was generous in crediting nature for his impressive abilities as a colorist, and his most beautiful scenic windows illustrate a reverent admiration of the natural world in general. The Swan Fountain Window invites us to enjoy Tiffany's idyllic and timeless vision of nature. Brilliant flowers of purple and pink frame a pool of rippled blue-green glass in which a family of swans swim peacefully near a group of ducks. The water flowing from the large fountain at center is depicted using cameo, as are certain other details of the window. The window also makes use of Tiffany's distinctive mottled, striated and "fractured" glass in the surrounding greens of the foliage, towering cypress trees, and opalescent blue sky.
Compositionally, the window has much in common with the well-known Garden Landscape and Fountain mosaic, once proudly displayed in the Tiffany Studios' showrooms and now ensconced in the Charles Engelhard Court of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing. The vivid coloration of Tiffany's glass and the strength of this idealized image, whether executed in leaded glass or mosaic, holds the same powerful appeal today that they did at the turn of the century.