Gallery

Title
Summer from The Four Seasons
Location
The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art Winter Park, FL
Creator
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Creation Date
1899
Restoration Date
2010
URL
http://www.morsemuseum.org/
Description
After the initial showing of The Four Seasons at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and later at the Grafton Galleries in London, this large window was selectively cut apart into ten separate panels which were then installed in Laurelton Hall. SUMMER and the other nine panels, along with other exceptional pieces, were purchased after the fire at Laurelton Hall in 1957. While SUMMER suffered a fate similar to that as “Feeding the Flamingoes” the extent of the re-constructed damage was not as severe. Border pieces that didn’t’ survive the fire were replaced with poorly selected non-matching glass while in the upper left section of the window an attempt to fill a missing area resulted in an unsightly dull glass repair. Numerous lead flanges were added to cover cracks, compromising the flow of the design.

By referencing photographs of the window at the Paris Exposition of 1900, we were able to reconstruct the missing areas while remaining glass within the adjacent area determined the color of the new glass. SUMMER has now regained its original look seen in both the Paris and later Laurelton Hall installations. Its companion panels “SPRING, AUTUMN, & WINTER have also been restored by the Venturella Studio and can be seen in the new Laurelton Hall galleries at the Morse Museum.