Fabergé eggs, Lalique’s sculptures of women turning into butterflies and lamps by Tiffany whose shades were masterpieces of handmade glass were fantastic then.
They are even more prized now that such time-consuming craftsmanship is almost unimaginable and the work from that era – now true antiques – have become immensely valuable.
But not untouchable.
And that’s not because the Legion of Honor in San Francisco is exhibiting the works of the three decorators, but because Alan Schneider, owner of Antique Traders, has the biggest collection of Tiffany glassware west of the Mississippi River.
You can touch them. And he doesn’t charge admission.
He doesn’t expect you to buy anything, either, especially because the cheapest Tiffany lamp in the store is $9,000.
“If, during the three months of the show, I get 200 people to come here, even if they don’t buy anything, but they appreciate everything, that does it for me,” he said. “It’s a feather in my cap.”
Schneider is just totally in love with Art Nouveau decorative art, and his shop on California Street and Fifth Avenue is a museum of the period. “This is a lifetime of collecting,” he said. “Thirty-eight years.”
A native San Franciscan, Schneider knew nothing about art before traveling to Europe in 1970. He had been working in insurance, but he brought home a few antique pieces and opened shop. He slowly became enthralled with the natural themes and femininity of the Art Nouveau motifs.
He started investing in Handel and Pairpoint lamps, American-made lamps from the period that used a reverse painting technique on the inside of shades that were stunning when lit.
“I could buy them for $500 and $1,000, and they were like Tiffanies,” he said.
About 20 years ago, he bought his first Tiffany for about $5,000 and began to collect them at a rapid pace. In the past two years, he doubled his collection of lamps – he has about 45 at an average value of $85,000 each – and Favrile glassware – accessory pieces such as vases, goblets, plates, candlesticks and desk items – which number about 150 and are worth from $350 to $20,000 apiece.
Schneider says the Legion of Honor show includes three stunning lamps – a peacock, a butterfly and a wisteria – but the rest are so-so.
“Knowing Tiffany, it’s not the best I have seen,” he said.
Masterpieces
After years of looking at the New York designer’s glass studio work, Schneider is certain when he’s seen a masterpiece emerge from a field of top-quality pieces.
His $100,000-plus peony is one such piece, done on the particular artist’s good day.
“It’s multicolored. They were all well done, but the glass they used in this one is mottled. There is great differentiation between the colors they used in the way the sheets of glass were put together,” he said. “It’s incredible.”
Schneider can carry on exuberantly about most everything in his store, three rooms in 1,400 square feet that are fairly stuffed with treasures from the Art Nouveau period of 1880 to 1920.
Impressive inventory
His inventory of lamps and glassware includes Duffner and Kimberly, Handel, Pairpoint, Bradley and Hubbard, Moe Bridges, Classique and the French studios of Daum Nancy and Émile Gallé, including several of the artist’s signature layered glass with cutaway designs.
Schneider’s collection of stained and beveled glass windows comes from many sources – but no churches, he says – and is among the largest in the country.
He has three Tiffany windows, including one of a woman in a Grecian gown gazing out of a grove of trees as she draws water from a fountain.
To Schneider, the scene is realistic despite its obvious formal abstraction, and it’s a quality he says Tiffany gave to every piece of glass composition that had a natural theme.
Whether depicting a tulip, peony, daffodil, dogwood or pomegranate on a shade, the copper and leaded edges of the glass were curved, Schneider noted, “not jagged, like in a reproduction.”
Though the notion of a Tiffany lamp is well known from the heavy production of copies in the 1970s for family rec rooms and fern bars, eyeing the real thing is a different experience.
Subtle colors
Besides the subtlety in shaping the pattern outlines, there’s the way Tiffany graduated the color scheme on a single lamp shade.
“People don’t even realize how good this is,” Schneider said as he caressed the shade of a 16-inch geometric patterned shade with heavily mottled, dicrolic glass. “Look how it goes from a mustard blue to a lighter blue to a lot more blue to total blue.”
All Tiffany lamps have decorative bronze bases that are artistic tour-de-forces as well. “I will switch shades and bases sometimes. Some lamps went with bases, but you could also choose shade to go with a base. They (Tiffany) had a studio and people could say I want that and that.”
Schneider’s collection of Tiffany lamps includes turtlebacks, the large chunks of glass that resemble a turtle’s shell; damascenes, with blown-glass shades that exude a marbleized or flowing water pattern; and the draped stained-glass shades called linen fold.
His large collection of Favrile pieces exhibits another part of Tiffany artistry: the ability to blow design patterns into the glass piece.
Schneider has one locked case from which he pulls out one after another – a pedestal compote dish with a wide ridged edge in tones of blue, cream and peach, or an 8-inch oval vase with leaves and vines swirling around it in greens and golds, iridescent with a satin finish. “It cost $20 when it was made,” Schneider said. “Now, it’s worth $9,000.”
And to top it off, Schneider boasts possession of one of the most valuable Tiffanies around: a blue jack-in-the-pulpit vase, considered one of the designer’s most distinct sculptural pieces. “There’s only one other in the country,” he said. “They are extremely rare.”
Schneider has advertised his store widely in all the proper journals and hopes to sell about half of his stock to serious collectors during the course of the Legion of Honor show. And that’s why it’s a good idea to check out his Tiffanies now. A second chance may never come again.
“The people that come in to buy, they will want a piece of history,” he said, “especially because of the economy. They are a major investment. I cannot foresee the future, but in 20 years, they will double or triple in value.”
