January 21, 2005
Tiffany glassmaking secrets revealed
The Juliette K. and Leonard S. Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, the world's library of record on glass, has acquired two significant collections of archival materials related to the history of Tiffany Studios and the glassmaker Lalique.Full press release here; the Antiques Trade Gazette reports that the hammer price of the Tiffany material was $32,000.In June, 2004, the Museum purchased at auction at Christies a collection of materials belonging to Arthur J. and Leslie H. Nash, relating to their work as master glassmakers for Tiffany Studios in Corona, NY, in the early 1900s.
Arthur Nash developed the unique recipe for Tiffany's signature Favrile glass. The collection includes notebooks and journals containing the recipe, which was never shared with anyone, including Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. The recipe is in code, and among the documents is Nash's “key” to the code. In addition, the archive contains never-before published letters and handwritten notes that provide insight into the complex behind-the-scenes relationship of the Nashes with Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Posted by David on January 21, 2005 3:08 PM
I would like to add something to the Nash Glass makers. John Nash who has passed on now told me that all the codes for the glass were good except they passed down by word of mouth things that had to happen during the process. John, I believe was Leslie,s son. He had married my ex-wifes mother and he told me many stories about the family. In fact it was believed that Tiffney had the Nash,s glass factory Burned so he could get the Nash,s to work for him. The Nash,s were makeing fancy glass before Tiffiny.I know that the trunk that held all the formulas were in Maine at one time at John,s sister,s summer home. Leslie Nash was also a very good artist. I still have one painting of his that is signed and dated 1940. At one time we had about 15 of them. I think the rest of them were destroyed. Thanks for your time
Timothy Kilbourn
Posted by: Timothy R. Kilbourn on July 2, 2008 6:12 PM
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