Tiffany glass

The Haworth Art Gallery is home to Europe’s largest collection of Tiffany glass from the studio of Louis Comfort Tiffany. The museum, a Tudor-style house, was originally built in 1909 to be the home of William Haworth, a manufacturer of textiles. The house was designed by Walter Brierley (1862–1926, a York architect known as “the Yorkshire Lutyens”. It was bequeathed to the people of Accrington in 1920,[3] and stands in nine acres of parkland on the south side of Accrington Town Centre.

The Haworth’s Tiffany collection is the largest outside the United States, with almost every type of Tiffany glass, including 140 pieces, including Favrile glass tiles, jewels, samples and mosaics. It was the gift of Joseph Briggs, a design apprentice who left Accrington at 17 to emigrate to the United States, where he worked for Tiffany for 40 years from about 1892. In 1933, he sent his Tiffany collection home.

The collection is on permanent public display in four themed-rooms: ‘Tiffany and Interior Design’, ‘Tiffany and the Past’, ‘Tiffany and Nature’, and ‘The Tiffany Phenomenon’. Notable in the Gallery’s Tiffany collection are over 70 vases, including a group of ‘Millefiore Paperweight’ and ‘Intaglio’ or cut-glass examples, ‘flowerform’ vases, vases shaped like vegetables, ‘Cypriote’ and ‘Tel-El-Armana’ vases inspired by Roman and Egyptian examples. There are also samples relating to decorative schemes Briggs was involved with, and his ‘Sulphur-crested Cockatoos’ mosaic.

Most of the Haworth Art Gallery’s permanent collections of 19th and 20th artworks have been bequeathed by eminent citizens of Accrington, predominantly the Nuttall and Hitchon collections. Works include Storm off the French Coast by Claude Joseph Vernet, which featured on the BBC Changing the Weather programme and My Layde’s Palfrey by John Frederick Herring Snr.

 

Further information:
  • Opening times Wednesday to Sunday 12.00 pm – 4.00 pm; closed Monday, Tuesday and Bank Holidays
  • Location:  Haworth Art Gallery, Manchester Road, Accrington, Lancashire BB5 2JS
  • This is a free exhibition
  • The gallery is situated in its own park on the A680, south of Accrington town centre.  Car parking is available to the side of the building and is free of charge. From the bus station, the 464 bus passes the gallery every 10 minutes.
  • Contact Tel: 01254 233782;  email: enquiries@hyndburnbc.gov.uk
  • https://www.hyndburnbc.gov.uk/haworthaccrington/