Chicago's Driehaus Museum to host Tiffany exhibit

This Tiffany Nautilus Shell Lamp is among the items featured in an inaugural exhibit at the Driehaus Museum in Chicago. | PHOTO COPYRIGHT DRIEHAUS MUSEUM

More than 60 works by Louis Comfort Tiffany and associated firms comprise the inaugural exhibition “Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection,” opening Sept. 28 at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, the Gold Coast mansion museum at 40 E. Erie.

The works, including lamps, vases, windows, furnishings and metalwork, will be on display throughout the museum’s second floor, and are derrived from the Driehaus’ private Tiffany collection.

“I am delighted to be a part of this exhibition, which combines my twin passions for collecting and preserving late 19th and early 20th century architecture and decorative arts,” said Richard H. Driehaus, the Chicago businessman philanthropist and museum founder, in a prepared statement. “The Nickerson mansion’s [the grand Gilded Age-era residence of Chicago banker Samuel M. Nickerson] restored interiors and the superbly crafted Tiffany objects complement one another perfectly. I view myself as a steward of these beautiful works, and I am thrilled to have this opportunity to share my treasures in the context for which many of these objects were originally created.”

Among the highlights: a bronze Benediction candelabrum created for the Tiffany Chapel at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1892 and a one-of-a-kind nautilus shell centerpiece lamp circa 1910.

The Driehaus Museum on N. Erie. | SUN-TIMES PHOTO

The exhibit marks the launch of the museum’s exhibition program, showcasing the domestic interiors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Admission to the exhibit is included in self-guided general admission: $20 for adults, $12.50 for seniors ages 65 and over, $10 for students and kdisages 6–12. Children ages 5 and under are free.

Call (312) 482-8933, ext. 21 or visit DriehausMuseum.org.