~ Can You Love A Chandy ~

You bet your shades you can....lol!!! Today I want to show and tell you how I got my Chandy... Its a Tiffany ca. 1895 I bought this right out of a collector home...she had it in her kitchen for over 40 years hanging above her table, she said her and her husband bought this in 1942 and brought it home on the street car and it took them 2 trips to get it home...its so heavy and so they took it apart and reassembled it....

I loved Helen the woman I got this from she lived in an old Elk's lodge made into a home and it was packed to the top with Antiques...They had a full size post office, barber shop and even a drug store, all her kitchen was old general store display cabinets and bin counters...It really was like Antique heaven to me ha ha!!! And the best part was that if the price was right they sell you what ever you wanted....

Well I wanted this Chandy...But she was not ready to sell it...then one day she called me with a price, which I thought was a bit too pricey But hey its screamed my name..Any Hoo Wally and I decided to throw caution to the wind and bite the bullet and get it....It took him and Roth (Helen's husband) a few hours to get it down...Its very heavy did I tell you that??? Well we packed up our new treasurer and off we went....Its was not until we got it home and was cleaning it that we seen the tags on the shades that said LCT...could it really be what we thought ?? Well I had an antique appraiser come out to look at it and OMG it was a Tiffany...OK picture me doing my Happy Dance now...ha ha!!

So this piece I thought was a bit too pricey, turns out to be worth far more than what I paid for it...The appraiser offered to buy it from me that day...No way Jose it took me 2 years to talk Helen into selling it....I bought this in 1982 so it has now hung above my dining room table for over 25 years.... Roth and Helen didn't even know it was a Tiffany, so here they are thinking they cut a Fat Hog with us and it was us that got the Fat Hog ha ha!! Don't you love a good ending??? Now the ceiling Focal point or medallion is from a company in San Francisco that I ordered to go with the Chandy it did not come with it....It's called Elizabeth and had to have it because it was named after my Mama sighs....

Louis Comfort Tiffany was born in New York City February 18, 1848 the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany who founded the prestigious New York silver and jewelry firm Tiffany & Co. His father’s company founded in 1837 catered to the wealthy elite, presidents and royalty such as Queen Victoria of England. Louis was a teenager during The Civil War, in 1866 at the age of 18 he began to study art under American landscape artist George Inness. In his 20’s he traveled widely in Europe and visited Spain, North Africa and the Middle East. There he developed an interest in Islamic architecture and ornament, Romanesque and Moorish art, and Japanese ceramics. Growing up in such a wealthy family had enabled Tiffany to travel in Europe four times between 1865-1872.
On his return to the United States in 1872, at the age of 24 Tiffany began his first studies in glass and mosaics. Later his experiments with iridescent glass were conducted by exposing hot glass to a series of fumes and metallic oxides. Over the years Tiffany Studios would produce many stained glass windows, lamps and glass vessels using his famous “iridescent” glass.
Tiffany was inspired by Thomas Edison’s new invention the incandescent filament light bulb. He was among the first to create a revolution in home illumination using his colored glass to produce beautiful commercial electric lamps. Effort was made for Tiffany’s artistic products to reach all economic levels sometimes at the sacrifice of company profit. He introduced his style and left his mark in the U.S. by redecorating a number of private homes and public spaces. Mark Twain, Cornelius Vanderbilt and, the presidential White House are listed among Tiffany’s clients. Most Tiffany lamps were made between 1895 and 1920.

Hope you enjoyed my Tiffany story...Like I have said before if these pieces could talk the stories they could tell...I really have loved being the Care taker of these things, so they will be passed on as history should be...

Until next time from my mountain top to yours,