Tiffany Lamps

What makes a Tiffany lamp

The name comes from Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose New York studios developed the copper-foil method of leading small pieces of coloured glass into a curved shade around the turn of the twentieth century. A Tiffany lamp, sometimes described simply as a stained glass lamp, is built that way: individual pieces of glass cut by hand, wrapped and soldered into a framework, then mounted on a cast base. That construction is why the shade glows in distinct panels of colour when lit and reads as a patterned object when it is off, which no printed or moulded shade reproduces.

Real leaded glass, and how to tell

Not everything sold as Tiffany style is made the same way. Genuine leaded construction shows a visible solder seam between every piece of glass, and the seams follow the pattern rather than running in a regular grid. Hold a shade to the light and the colours vary slightly in density across a single panel, because hand-rolled glass is never perfectly uniform. A moulded plastic or printed shade gives an even, repeating pattern with no seams and a flat colour. Everything in this range is hand-cut glass in a metal frame, so no two shades are identical in the fine detail of their pattern.

Fixture types across the range

Table lamps suit a side table, console or desk, where the shade sits close to eye level and the colour does the most work. Floor lamps, called standard lamps in British usage, give the same effect beside seating without taking up a table. Wall lights, sold as wall sconces in North America, work in pairs beside a chimney breast or along a hallway. Overhead, there are pendants for rooms with height and flush and semi-flush ceiling fittings, known as flush mounts in the US, for rooms without it. Buying two or three pieces from the same palette lets you light a room in layers rather than relying on one feature piece.

Colourways and the light they give

Most shades are multicoloured, setting several glass tones into one pattern, and these read best where the lamp is the thing you look at. Narrower palettes, including flame red, blue, beige and black, carry one dominant tone with detail worked through it, and they sit more easily in a room that already has a colour scheme. Bases are usually bronze-toned, which picks up the warm colours in the glass. Because the light passes through tinted glass, output is softer and warmer than a plain shade of the same size, so treat these as layered or ambient light rather than the only source in a room.

Wiring, class and fixing

Two practical points decide how straightforward an installation is. The first is electrical class: some fittings are Class 1 and require an earth, others are Class 2 and are double insulated. Both appear here, and the specification table on each product page states which, so check it before wiring anything in and use a qualified electrician for any fixed installation. The second is weight. Leaded glass is dense, and a three-light pendant weighs considerably more than a plain glass fitting of the same size, so pendants and flush fittings need fixing into a joist or a proper ceiling fixing rather than into plasterboard alone. Almost everything in the range is rated IP20 for dry indoor use, with the occasional IP44 piece suitable for a covered exterior spot.

Bulbs and getting the colour right

The lamp you fit changes the character of the glass more than people expect. Warm white at 2700K brings out the amber, bronze and gold tones and is what these shades were designed around. Cooler light at 4000K and above flattens the warmth and can make the greens and blues look cold and slightly grey. Most fittings take a standard E27 screw cap, with smaller lamps on E14 or G9, and the cap and maximum wattage are listed on each product page. Fitting an over-rated lamp runs the shade hotter than it is designed for, which is worth avoiding on a hand-soldered piece.

Caring for the glass and the leading

Stained glass needs less maintenance than people assume, but it does not tolerate the wrong cleaning. Dust with a dry or barely damp soft cloth. Solvents, abrasive creams and metal polishes all attack the solder between the glass pieces and strip the patina from the frame, and once that patina is gone it cannot be restored. Never soak a shade or put one anywhere near a dishwasher, and let a lamp cool fully before handling it. Treated sensibly, a leaded shade will outlast most of the room around it.