Hear the Curator - The Process

Louis Comfort Tiffany, best known for his leaded-glass lighting fixtures and windows, favored a milky, opalescent glass he called favrile, which was produced at the Tiffany Glass Furnaces in Corona, Queens. The brilliant sunset in the central panel of this window features streaky glass, which was created by pouring ladles of molten glass onto a marver, or polished steel surface used for glassmaking. The glassmaker then used rods to mix and swirl the glass, which retained streaks of color as it hardened. The green foliage of the tree at the left of the panel is made of streamer and confetti glass. Streamer glass was made by laying thin rods of glass on the marver and then fusing them to a sheet of molten glass; confetti glass was made by embedding small shards of glass into a sheet of molten glass.