Donor Profile: Micki and Jay Doros

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Corning Museum of Glass

Micki and Jay Doros

Fifty years ago, Micki and Jay Doros were vacationing on Cape Cod. With not much else to do, they spent some time casually browsing an antique shop, where they became fascinated with the glass on display. Since that day, they have been avid collectors.

Says Jay, “We were both interested in glass and it was something we could do together. Although our collecting interests have changed over the years, we’ve both remained engaged.”

“During that same vacation, we were reading an antiques magazine and we saw an advertisement for The Corning Museum of Glass Seminar,” says Micki. “We thought we should go. We largely owe Corning for educating us about glass. We purchased a lot of books, and we became good friends with Rakow librarians Norma Jenkins and Virginia Wright. They were a great help to us. The Seminar lectures are wonderful and we always come home having learned something.” The 2012 Annual Seminar on Glass (held annually in October) marks the 49th Corning Museum Seminar the Doroses have attended.

During their first 20 years of collecting, Micki and Jay focused on cut glass. Micki then became interested in art glass. Minna Rosenblatt, an art glass dealer on Madison Avenue, advised them, as did their son, Paul Doros, then curator of glass at the Chrysler Museum of Art. Paul suggested they specialize in one maker, and they chose Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Favrile Kerosene Lamp with Morning Glory Shade and Peacock Feather Base by Louis Comfort Tiffany

Favrile Kerosene Lamp with Morning Glory Shade and Peacock Feather Base, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Corona, NY, about 1895-1905. (Gift of Micki and Jay Doros, 2006.4.287)

One of the Doroses’ Tiffany objects was displayed in the 2009 exhibition Tiffany Treasures: Favrile Glass from Special Collections. “We bought a lamp at auction. How can you let a (Tiffany) Peacock Eye Lamp Base go?” says Micki. “Then, when we redecorated the house, the lamp got broken. It lay in a box for a year, broken, because we couldn’t bear to look at it. We eventually gave it to the Museum, and conservator, Steve Koob, fixed it.” Learn more about the restoration of the lamp base in the article Restoring Tiffany.

Jay and Micki are active supporters of the Museum. Jay is a Museum Fellow, and both are founding members of the Ennion Society. The Ennion Society is an honorary group for donors who make annual gifts to the Museum of $1,200 or more. Donations are used for acquisitions to the Museum’s glass collection, the world’s most important collection of glass, including the finest examples of glassmaking spanning 3,500 years. Members of the Ennion Society play a critical role in ensuring the Museum’s stature as the international leader in the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge about the art, history, science, and technology of glass and glassmaking.

After all these years, the Doros’ interest in glass in only growing. “The Rakow Library has always been our favorite spot at the Museum,” says Jay. “We spend five days at Seminar, and we spend time at the Library doing research. No matter how much you know, you never know enough.”

Exhibition on Louis C. Tiffany features Stained Glass Window from Corning Museum

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Yvette Sterbenk

Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion, an exhibit currently on view at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), in New York City, showcases the array of church decorations and memorials that Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) produced beginning in the early 1880s. On view through January 20, 2013, the exhibit shows the breadth and depth of the firm’s oeuvre, and the place Tiffany Studios created for itself in American religious art.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a Corning Museum artwork, The Righteous Shall Receive a Crown of Glory (96.4.230). The window, which measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1, was created for the United Methodist Church of Waterville, New York, around 1901.

Warren Bunn, CMOG’s manager of exhibitions and collections examines the window pre-conservation with Drew Anderson, conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and independent curator Diane Wright.

When the window was removed from the church, it went into the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Randall. The couple offered it to the Corning Museum in 1996. At that time, it was too large for the Museum to display in any of its gallery areas and needed restoration work. However, since one of the most important roles of a Museum is to collect and preserve important objects for the future, the donation was accepted and the window stabilized for storage.

Curators and conservators from The Corning Museum of Glass and the Metropolitan Museum of Art examine the window to assess conservation treatment.

When MOBIA began planning its Tiffany exhibition, it approached the Corning Museum about this window. Several institutions then came together to complete conservation work on this beautiful object. CMoG offered its existing conservation report to facilitate work on the window. The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass offered conservation studio space where the treatment could take place. MOBIA incorporated the cost of the restoration into its exhibition budget.

The window was secured in 12 custom-built crates at CMOG and taken to the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in July 2012. Over the summer, it was restored by Drew Anderson, a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who specializes in stained glass.

Preparing to install at MOBIA.

When the exhibit at MOBIA ends, the window will come back to Corning, and the curatorial staff are working on trying to find a space to display it. We’ll keep you posted.

In place at MOBIA. The window measures 12’ 10” x W. 8’1.

May Flowers at the Rakow Library: Design Drawings by the Tiffany Girls

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Nive Chatterjee

The Rakow Research Library holds eight original Tiffany drawings: Branches Bearing Yellow Berries, Chestnut Leaves, Dandelion Plant, Marsh Marigold, Peonies, Thistle, Violets and Yellow Berries. All of them except for Branches Bearing Yellow Berries have the titles handwritten on them. Five of the drawings are signed by Alice C. Gouvy and two by Lillian A. Palmié (Peonies is the unsigned drawing and was most probably also completed by Gouvy or Palmié). All of the drawings are watercolors that have the Tiffany Furnaces stamp, five of the drawings have the Enamel Dept. S. G .Co. (Stourbridge Glass Company) stamp, and three of the drawings are dated 1902. Violets at 24 cm by 29 cm, is the smallest drawing and Chestnut Leaves measuring 48 cm by 66 cm, and Thistle at 64 cm by 45 cm, are the two largest.

Chestnut Leaves design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy

These drawings were water damaged, most likely in the flood of 1972 when Hurricane Agnes struck the Corning area. When I first saw them, I can remember seeing embedded grime, discoloration, tidemarks, and tears. In 2007, the eight drawings were taken to The Westlake Conservators in Skaneateles, New York, where paper objects and photographic materials conservator, Michele Philips treated and matted these drawings.

: Dandelion Plant

: Peonies

: Yellow Berries

The artists, Gouvy and Palmié, are documented in New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls by Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray and Margaret K. Hofer, 2007. Lillian Palmié was born in Brooklyn, NY around 1871-74 and was at Tiffany Studios by 1897. Her twin sister, Marion Palmié also worked for the firm. Alice Carmen Gouvy was born in Cleveland, OH, around 1870-75. She graduated from Cleveland School of Art in 1894, moved to New York and probably started working for Tiffany then. Clara Driscoll’s work is unraveled in this book from her letters to her family. She was employed by Louis Comfort Tiffany as a creative artist from the late 1880s until around 1909 and led a staff of women known as the “Tiffany Girls” that included Gouvy and Palmié. They worked behind the scenes and made a valuable contribution to Tiffany’s creations. Gouvy and Palmié and other ladies of a small female staff were part of the enamel and pottery department under Driscoll’s direction. Their drawings are the first step in the process of creating designs and decorative objects produced by the enamel department. Importantly, Driscoll reveals that Tiffany generally approved of her ideas, and rarely did he make changes to her designs.

Branches Bearing Yellow Berries design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy and Lillian A. Palmié

Branches Bearing Yellow Berries design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Lillian A. Palmié

Two of the drawings, Thistle and Marsh Marigold were on loan to the New York Historical Society through May, for inclusion in their traveling exhibition titled A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls at The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida.

Marsh Marigold design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy

Thistle design drawing for Tiffany Furnaces by Alice C. Gouvy

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Tag Archives: Louis Comfort Tiffany

Donor Profile: Micki and Jay Doros

Exhibition on Louis C. Tiffany features Stained Glass Window from Corning Museum

May Flowers at the Rakow Library: Design Drawings by the Tiffany Girls