Design for Chancel wall for First Reformed Church, Albany, NY

Louis C. Tiffany|Tiffany Studios

1910 · Watercolor, pen and ink, aluminum wash, and graphite on wove paper · The American Wing

In 1910, the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany commissioned Tiffany Studios to redecorate the sanctuary of their historic house of worship. A contemporary newspaper recounts that Tiffany supplied "chancel furniture…especially designed of Flemish oak to correspond with" the church's seventeenth-century pulpit, sent to the colonies from the Netherlands. The glittering chancel wall was painted in a dark "old-gold" color, following a pattern adapted from a fifteenth-century tapestry. Tiffany Studios also supplied chandeliers, stained-glass windows, and stenciled borders. In the 1940s, the church was redecorated and the Tiffany Studios decoration was lost except for the furnishings. Tiffany's work on the Dutch Church in Albany epitomizes his relationship with the Colonial Revival movement, as it suggests his willingness to consider the past, while creating his own distinctive style.

Artist

Louis C. Tiffany|Tiffany Studios

Date

1910

Medium

Watercolor, pen and ink, aluminum wash, and graphite on wove paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, Walter Hoving and Julia T. Weld Gifts and Dodge Fund,1967