Nautilus Reading Lamp (c. 1899–1902): Art, History and Details

Nautilus Reading Lamp (c. 1899–1902) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company (America, New York, 1892–1902).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Benjamin Hubbell, the architect of the Cleveland Museum of Art, acquired this vase from Louis Comfort Tiffany, with whom he collaborated on various projects. The shape of the nautilus shell provides the perfect space to conceal a light bulb, the newest form of technology at the time. As a result, this lamp was a critical success and sold both in this original form and with the later alteration of a bronze mermaid for the stand and an actual nautilus shell for the shade.

Object facts

• Title: Nautilus Reading Lamp
• Date: c. 1899–1902
• Creator attribution: Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company (America, New York, 1892–1902)
• Culture: America, early 20th Century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze, leaded glass
• Dimensions: Overall: 34.5 x 21.3 x 13.4 cm (13 9/16 x 8 3/8 x 5 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1997.298

A detail from the museum

A lamp of this design was first featured in Siegfried Bing's 1899 display of Louis Comfort Tiffany's designs at the Grafton Galleries in London then in Tiffany's own stand at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle.

Collection credit

Bequest of Virginia Hubbell

Further reading listed by the museum

• Johnson, Marilynn. Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages. London, UK: Scala, 2005.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.