18" Peony Shade

Last week, we completed an 18" Peony shade for our showroom. We always try and meld showroom pieces in with our commission work. This gives visitors to our studio showroom something new to see each time they visit. While Bill fine tuned the layout for the Madame Charpentier window, Irwin worked on this shade. The completed shade is pictured to the left on the Doric Column base.

The 18" Peony is one of Tiffany Studios' most popular shade designs and has always been a fun piece to create due to its overall floral design. This shade has a lush feel which translates well into many different color schemes. At the bottom of the posting we are showing another example which we created in 2006 on a Pottery 7-Handled base.

Since we were creating this piece for our showroom, we looked to our glass for color inspiration - usually, a client will have a general color scheme in mind when ordering a lamp. After searching through our glass library, we decided to create a piece with an Impressionistic, blended look. To this end, the flower colors bleed into background and leaf colors, and vise-versa. In the photo below, you can see how we lay the pieces out on our light table to check the balance of colors before assembling the shade.

To add richness to the lamp, muted greens that had whites and pinks blended in were employed throughout the background and leaf selections. The pink/white, and white/pink/green flowers were cut from Lins glass (a fantastic glass maker that has been out of business for many years). Glass colors come from minerals and mineral oxides. To achieve the subtle pink tones in this special glass, gold was used.

The 18" Peony shade design is a versatile sized lamp. This shade can be used with many different table bases, and this shade makes a perfect chandelier fixture.