File:Pond lily lamp - Tiffany (27749866607).jpg

Pond lily lamp with 10 green shades, by Tiffany & Co. On display at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.

This Art Nouveau lamp, made of favrile glass and bronze, was made some time between 1902 and 1910.

Favrile glass is an "art glass" (glass made for objects, not to see through) developed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1894 and first produced for manufacture in 1896.

The Tiffany family was quite wealthy. Tiffany's grand-father, Comfort Tiffany, owned a cotton mill and general store in Connecticut. Tiffany's father, Charles Tiffany, co-founded in 1837 Tiffany and Young, a stationery and gift shop in New York City. The firm shifted into clocks, cutlery, glassware, jewelry, and porcelain. It shifted into fine art home goods (particularly glass, jewelry, and porcelain) in 1841 and changed its name to Tiffany, Young and Ellis. It reorganized as Tiffany & Co. in 1850.

Like most wealthy young Americans, Louis Comfort Tiffany made a Grand Tour of Europe to study architecture, art, and culture when he was 17. In London, he was particularly impressed with the Roman and Syrian iridescent glass and medieval stained glass he saw at the South Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum).

At the time, nearly all colored glass was painted in some way. Color could be applied while the glass was still hot, impregnating the surface slightly, or it could be applied after the glass was cool. This glass was not very luminous (seeming to glow from within), nor was it iridescent (e.g., the color did not seem to change when seen from different angles). Hot-painted glass tended to lose its color over time, and cool-painted glass could flake and become clear. Artists were limited in the colors they could use, because not all pigments would bond to glass.

In 1875, Tiffany began experimenting with new ways of coloring glass. He hit upon the idea of mixing metallic oxides with molten glass, a process that infused color throughout the glass -- deepening the color. Oxides also greatly expanded the range of color which could be produced. Combined with other glass-making and glass-etching techniques, Tiffany was able to create a luxurious iridescent surface effect.

Tiffany called this glass "Fabrile", an Old English word meaning "hand-wrought". He later changed the word to Favrile, "since this sounded better".