Enchanted by the exotic allure of Orientalist literature—particularly the vivid tales of Mark Twain—Louis Comfort Tiffany embarked on a transformative grand tour of the Near East between 1871 and 1876. His journey unfolded like a painted scroll, revealing the architectural splendors of Islamic civilization, a legacy of the great conquests from the 7th to 9th centuries that extended from the sun-drenched shores of Portugal to the gilded palaces of India. With the eye of a painter and the soul of a poet, Tiffany captured what he beheld: the lace-like stucco of the Alhambra, the soaring minarets of ancient Persia, and the solemn grandeur of Egypt’s towering mosques.
Upon returning to American soil, Tiffany co-founded the interior design firm Associated Artists with fellow aesthete Lockwood de Forest. The firm swiftly rose to prominence as a leader in Orientalist interior design, catering to the increasingly cosmopolitan tastes of New York’s Gilded Age elite. Tiffany’s fascination with Eastern aesthetics first found expression in his personal spaces, including the Apartments at the YMCA (1869–1872) and the Bella Apartments (1872–1878). His visionary style—steeped in Byzantine opulence and Eastern mystique—quickly captivated the public imagination. In 1892, he was commissioned to design the interiors of the Havemeyer residence at 1 East 66th Street, a jewel-box of a home that embraced the Byzantine Revival style in all its glory. Today, many of Tiffany’s masterworks from that commission reside in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, standing as enduring testaments to a bygone era of artistic grandeur and cultural fascination.
Seven years later, in 1899, Tiffany unveiled 28 light fixtures at London’s Grafton Galleries in the “Moorish” style—a genre characterized by pierced brass filigree, blown glass shades, and jewel-like accents. The term “Moorish” broadly refers to the artistic production of medieval Spain under the rule of the surviving Umayyad Caliphate after the 8th century, celebrated for its integration of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish influences into an ornate and distinctive visual language.
Macklowe Gallery’s Moorish Jeweled Prism Lamp is a striking new acquisition in one of Tiffany’s most coveted early styles. Uniquely among his designs, the lamp places the heat cap at center stage—an inspired fusion of form and function. The intricately pierced cap casts delicate, lace-like shadows onto dimly lit walls, evoking the atmospheric glow of a mosque interior. Light shimmers through jewel-like glass prisms, echoing the chromatic poetry of Tiffany’s watercolor travel sketches. No two prisms are alike; together, they produce a radiant spectrum shifting from pale yellow to green to orange, with hints of blue iridescence. These glass jewels, cast in amber and sprayed with a dissolved tin solution, formed a thin, lustrous layer of tin oxide—imbuing each piece with an ethereal, iridescent glow.
The cap’s openwork design may also draw inspiration from the fanous—the traditional Egyptian glass-and-metal lanterns sold in Cairo’s souks during Ramadan. Openwork was a defining feature of Islamic ornamental metalwork, where function and aesthetics merged seamlessly: jalis (lattice screens) filtered light into patterned shadows, incense burners released their fragrance through perforated forms, and lanterns projected mesmerizing designs onto surrounding surfaces.
Encircling the heat cap, a sculptural border of twenty ogival turtleback tiles reinforces the lamp’s architectural presence. Tiffany first developed these iridized “turtlebacks” during his early stained-glass career at Heidt’s Glasshouse in Brooklyn, applying an iridizing spray that created dramatic color shifts under changing light. With the advent of electric lighting in the 1890s, turtlebacks proved especially effective—their varied thicknesses interacting dynamically with this new illumination. Tiffany Studios later refined the process at the Corona-based Tiffany Furnaces, where each tile was pressed in a two-part mold. Excess glass escaped through an open-top plate, then was pulled and snipped to form distinctive teardrop-shaped tails—a signature of authentic Tiffany turtlebacks.
The ogival form—pointing skyward in a graceful arch—is laden with symbolic meaning. In Islamic architecture, it signifies spiritual ascent, divine presence, and the infinite, reinforcing the lamp’s overarching themes of transcendence and sacred geometry. Tiffany’s jewel-like glass tiles often drew inspiration from historical gemstones, incorporating their colors and textures into his designs. The colorway of these turtlebacks—clear glass streaked with amber—recalls cabochon quartz, a gemstone favored in Byzantine decorative arts for its translucent clarity and smooth, domed form. In the Middle Ages, quartz symbolized purity, spiritual insight, and divine illumination.
Left: Fireplace Screen, Havemeyer House, Opalescent Quartz Jewels & Gilt Bronze Filigree, University of Michigan Museum of Art; Middle: Ogival Turtleback Tile, Jeweled Prism Heat Cap, Tiffany Studios, Macklowe Gallery; Right: Quartz Cabochon Detail on Jeweled Bracelet (One of a Pair), Byzantine, 500–700, J.P. Morgan Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Tiffany’s affinity for Byzantine Revival aesthetics permeated much of his early work. The quartz-inspired turtlebacks reflect his reverence for ancient traditions and his technical innovations in glass. His 1892 commission for the Havemeyer House exemplified this synthesis, featuring Byzantine-inspired glass jewels and metalwork. A year later, his acclaimed chapel at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago showcased his mastery of the style, using vibrant stained glass and richly colored mosaics to evoke the grandeur and spiritual depth of Byzantine art.
Left: Ogival Turtleback Tile, Jeweled Prism Heat Cap, Tiffany Studios, 1905-1910 Macklowe Gallery, Right: Ogival Ceramic tile detail, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque dome underside, Isfahan, Iran, 1619
The shade rests atop a Jacob’s Ladder base, a structure composed of six ascending ladders terminating in trifid (or “duck-footed”) feet and grounded on a circular disk. Named for the biblical vision of a ladder stretching between heaven and earth, the design symbolizes spiritual ascent and divine connection—reflecting Tiffany’s frequent use of Christian iconography, particularly in his ecclesiastical commissions, which formed one of the most successful departments of his studio. The six-ladder configuration imparts geometric balance, while the organic form of the trifid feet introduces a naturalistic counterpoint. The round disk provides both visual harmony and structural stability. Designed with both elegance and functionality in mind, the lamp is equipped with three pull-chain sockets for adjustable lighting, making it a masterwork of artistic synthesis and practical design.
Through its intricate craftsmanship, historical references, and spiritual symbolism, the Moorish Jeweled Prism Lamp transcends its role as both a functional and a decorative object. It stands as a luminous embodiment of cultural dialogue, artistic mastery, and Tiffany’s enduring fascination with the beauty of the Islamic and Byzantine worlds.
Left: Jacob’s Ladder Base, Tiffany Studios New York Base model 548, Right: Jacob's Ladder etching, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1655, National Gallery of Art
