UNVEILING CEREMONY OF

THE MINT'S HISTORIC TIFFANY GLASS MOSAICS

AT THE PHILADELPHIA MINT

INDEPENDENCE MALL, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

ON JUNE 8, 1971, AT 11:30 A.M.

PROGRAM

Welcoming Remarks \* \* \* \* Nicholas Theodore, Superintendent of the
Philadelphia\
Mint

Introductory Remarks \* \* \* Mrs. Mary Brooks, Director of the Mint

Special Remarks \* \* \* \* \* Mrs. John B. Connally, wife of the
Secretary of the\
Treasury

Unveiling of the Historic Tiffany Glass Mosaics

[NOTE]{.underline}: Immediately after the ceremony, arrangements have
been made for special tours

of the Mint for anyone who desires.

\[Picture of a Tiffany glass mosaic panel with the figures of children
illustrating the ancient Roman coinage processes of melting,
granulating, annealing or drying, weighing, stamping and finishing.\]

The Mint's Historic Tiffany Glass Mosaics

Seven Favrile glass mosaics, executed under the personal direction of
Louis C. Tiffany of the famous Tiffany Studios of New York City, have
been removed from the old Philadelphia Mint on Spring Garden Street and
re-mounted in the new U.S. Mint on Independence Mall.

Mrs. Mary Brooks, Director of the Mint, had the mosaics moved from the
old to the new Mint to preserve them as national treasures. The old Mint
became inefficient and obsolete for coinage production and will be
disposed of by the General Services Administration in accordance with
regular procedures.

The mosaics, made from designs by William B. Van Ingen, are unique to
the coinage operation and were commissioned at a cost of \$40,000 for
the third Mint facility in Philadelphia which opened in 1901. The two
oblong pieces measure 49-½ inches in height and 166-¼ inches in width.
The five circular works are 59-½ inches in diameter. Appraisers have
placed a today's fair value of \$420,000 on the seven panels.

Tiffany's world celebrity derives from his brilliantly hued stained
glass windows and mosaic designs found in many churches and buildings
here and abroad and from his floriated glass-shaded lamps and ornamental
objects on display in museums and held in private collections. The
Mint's pictorial mosaics are among the finest examples of the superb
craftsmanship and lasting beauty of Tiffany's decorative art.

He began his artistic career as a painter. An exceptional sense of color
he wished to impart to varied art forms and a desire to raise the
quality of minor arts to fine art \-- a term once reserved for oil
paintings and sculpture \-- led him to turn his multi-faceted talent to

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making stained glass, mosaics, rare glazes for pottery, enamels,
jewelry, tapestries and rugs. He was also a landscape artist, an
interior decorator and interested in architecture and lighting filtered
through colored glass. Tiffany once said:

"I have always striven to fix beauty in wood, or stone, or glass, or\
pottery, in oils, or watercolor, by using whatever seemed fittest for
the\
expression of beauty. That has been my creed."

In the course of refining the technique of making richly colored stained
glass and lustrous mosaics, he developed his own rainbow of colors and a
new kind of glass which he named Favrile, taken from fabrile which
pertains to an artificer or his work and marks it as made by hand. His
mosaics reflect his free use of color and to make them he used his
iridescent Favrile glass, mother-of-pearl and transparent tesserae
backed with gold or metal leaf.

Glass mosaics are one of the most durable art forms. They repel
atmospheric and chemical gases and the disintegrating influences of the
elements. Once stained, the glass pieces permanently retain their color.

The figures of children are used in the Mint's glass panels illustrating
the ancient Roman coinage processes of melting, granulating, annealing
or drying, weighing, stamping and finishing. Their use was suggested by
a wall painting unearthed from the Casa dei Vettii during the
excavations at Pompeii in 1895. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. The Vettian
mural, thought to have been done in the first half century of the
Christian era, shows plump, winged cupids performing the ancient coinage
methods.

The shimmering blues and greens of water and sky and the vivid red sails
of a ship can be seen in the background of several of the Mint's
masterpieces. For safety and ready access to transportation, ancient
mints were built on islands or near the water to secure the shipments of
coins from the perils of land travel.

At the turn of the century when the mosaics were installed at the Spring
Garden Street Mint, Tiffany's decorative art held great appeal

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for the newly wealthy of the day. The panels embellished an elaborate
white marble-walled lobby. Marble mosaics of the Great Seal of the
United States were embedded in a marble-tiled floor and overhead glowed
a gold-backed glass mosaic ceiling. A grand marble staircase swept up to
a medal display room. The lobby's ornate design and dazzling golden
radiance attracted throngs of out-of-town visitors and Philadelphians
alike to the only public area in the old Mint.

Soon after, however, Tiffany's popularity began to wane and by 1920 his
flowery art was out of vogue \-- scorned as too frilly, pretentious and
naive. He died in 1933 at the age of 88.

Today there is a revival of appreciation for Tiffany's work \-- the
colors and shapes he created and the new materials and techniques he
discovered.

He was a splendid colorist, an inventor, an artist who saw only beauty
and perfection in nature and life. He was born to comfortable
circumstances and his creative work brought him added fortune and fame.
He lived surrounded by magnificent settings he created in his country
homes and city apartment. His love for the colors and symmetry of
flowers, fruit, fish and the figures of young, healthy people is
reflected in his work.

In describing his art, Tiffany once said:

"The great thing in art \-- the thing that has helped me

more than anything \-- is the practice of looking at the

beautiful and shutting out the ugly."

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