We have completed the 25″ Mandarin Lotus shade, a symmetrically complex piece with an undulating accordion pleat surface. Tiffany Studios fashioned the shade to represent a large lotus leaf, with each lead line representing a vein in the leaf. Our client in North Carolina requested the glass color for the shade to be deep green with a pronounced mottle.
In 2012 we visited the Huntington Library and Gardens in California and snapped this photo in the Lily Pond Garden. It is difficult to get a sense of scale from the photo, but many of the large Lotus leaves are two feet in diameter, the same size as the shade.
As discussed in earlier posts, each of the 24 peaked ribs of the shade have a hand applied copper wire which accentuates the veining. The wires bisect seven times on their path from the small opening at the top to the wide outer edge.
The Mandarin Lotus base (also called the Ribbed Lotus base) represents the slender stalks that support the large leaves. This base was designed by Tiffany Studios specifically for this shade.
As sometimes happens, we created the shade for a client in North Carolina and the base for different client in Washington state. The two were briefly united for the above photos before being shipped to different sides of the country.
