Louis Comfort Tiffany at Tiffany & Co. Favrile Glass Scarab Brooch

With their combination of simple naturalism and powerful symbolism of resurrection, favrile glass scarabs represent an important motif and medium in Louis Comfort Tiffany's work. In his decades-long career of experimentation in creating precious artistic objects, Tiffany drew inspiration across many cultures and media, with nature as his touchstone. Tiffany had an intense interest in Egyptian art and collected a number of ancient scarabs. The spectral colors produced by his innovative treatment of the glass resembles real beetles' natural iridescence. At the same time, the iridescent surface evokes the look of long buried ancient glass, a nod to the fact that the importance of the scarab symbol spans millennia, and was a subject of contemporary fascination in the early 20th century art world. Here, the setting of the scarabs in delicate handmade bezel mountings approximates the way Egyptian goldsmiths mounted them in so-called "heart scarab" pendants. At the time this brooch was created, the head of his jewelry studio was Julia Munson, an important early partner in some of his strongest work. The appearance of "Beetle" jewelry in the Tiffany Blue Book around 1909 helps to date this work within the evolution of their designs. The presence of a scratched inventory mark suggests that closer dating may be possible at some point, should the Tiffany Archives pursue in further study of the jewelry studio record books.