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Move over Stanley cups, there’s a new product on the block to waste your money on. Well, perhaps not new.
It seems the latest objects taking TikTok by storm are Tiffany lamps. Yes, Tiffany lamps, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and colleagues between 1893 and the closure of Tiffany Studios in 1933.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was the son of the jeweller Charles Lewis Tiffany, who founded the stationery and fancy goods emporium Tiffany & Co. in New York in 1837. Tiffany became the company’s first official design director in 1902, after his father’s death, and led the business to international renown. Tiffany Studios (separate from Tiffany & Co.) produced lamps until his death in 1933.
And now the TikTok generation is obsessed with Tiffany lamps all over again, especially as designs for tattoos.
Los Angeles-based tattoo artist Beth Mintzer—who has called her business Lamp Lady Tattoos – reflecting the demand—told Elle Design, “I probably get around five lamp tattoo requests a month.”
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Wisconsin-based tattoo artist Audra Grosz even added a Tiffany lamp design to her flash sheet (a way that tattoo artists show designs to their potential clients, for the uninitiated) at the end of 2023.
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Fortunately, even the largest and most detailed tattoos of one of Tiffany’s iconic lamp designs are still a cheaper option than the real deal.
The current auction record for a Tiffany lamp was set at Christie’s New York in 2018 when a rare 1903 Pond Lily table lamp sold for R63 million. Other highly sought-after and valuable models include the Pink Lotus table lamp (R53 million), the Oriental Poppy chandelier (R12 million), and the Leaded Glass Aquatic Fish lamp (R3 million).
The price of an original Tiffany lamp might also explain some of the DIY lamps jumping on the TikTok bandwagon.
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Tiffany Studios stopped producing lamps in 1933, raising its value owing to rarity. But the lamps appear to have become especially appealing to people in their teens and twenties because of their emotive, nostalgic value. One of Grosz’s clients told Elle that her Tiffany lamp tattoo was “for my late mother, who collected them and worked in an antique emporium.”
Tiffany Studios also produced stained glass windows, mosaics, and desk sets, all of which fetch high prices at auction and are considered highly significant in the history of design.
“Tiffany lamps have been collected for generations,” Richard Wright, Rago Auctions CEO, told Artnet. “Drawn from the natural world, the imagery, colour and nostalgia factor continue to inspire broad interest. In our last auction, 100% of the Tiffany works sold, many above estimate, further demonstrating the lasting value and appeal of these works.”
At least a Tiffany lamp has a resale value. The same can’t be said for Stanley Cups, or tattoos for that matter.
[source:artnews]
