Tiffany Floor Lamp
date: label: Date made
content: ca 1889-1920
name: label: user
content: Patterson, Mary Marvin Breckinridge
label: manufacturer
content: Tiffany Studios
notes: label: Description
content: This lamp, from about 1900, is a compelling example of Louis Comfort Tiffany's ability to transform a design aesthetic inspired by nature into a fabulous decorative furnishing. The bamboo design is carried throughout the lamp. The dome-shaped 24" shade is constructed of green fibrillated glass with yellow mottling to create long tapering bamboo leaves and shoots against an opalescent geometric panel ground. The bamboo stalks appear to be growing against a wire trellis. The 62" integrated brown patinated bronze sectioned bamboo stem base is topped with a matching bamboo-inspired heat cap with a seedpod finial.
label: Description
content: The lamp was a bequest from the estate of Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, a generous Washington philanthropist. Following in the family tradition of supporting charitable, cultural, and preservation organizations, Mrs. Patterson was the source of numerous gifts and donations to the Smithsonian Institution and its museums and libraries. She was the daughter of Isabella Goodrich and attorney John Cabell Breckinridge. Her maternal grandfather was inventor and industrialist B. F. Goodrich. Her paternal great-grandfather was John C. Breckinridge, vice president of the United States and a military figure. She began her career as a freelance photojournalist and filmmaker. One of her first film subjects was the Frontier Nursing Service in Kentucky. During World War II, she was hired by Edward R. Murrow as a staff broadcaster for CBS in Berlin. Her photographs were published in <I>National Geographic</I>, <I>Life</I> and <I>Harper's Bazaar</I>. In 1940 she married American diplomat Jefferson Patterson and took on the role of diplomatic wife.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: New York, New York City
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
label: See more items in
content: Art
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Kendrick, Kathleen M. and Peter C. Liebhold. Smithsonian Treasures of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Mrs. Jefferson Patterson (Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson)
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2003.0276.01
label: catalog number
content: 2003.0276.01
label: accession number
content: 2003.0276
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Floor Lamp
label: Object Name
content: lamp, floor
label: Object Type
content: Floor
label: Object Type
content: Lighting Devices
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (shade material)
label: Physical Description
content: bronze (base material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (base material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 72 in x 24 in; 182.88 cm x 60.96 cm