H. O. Havemeyer House Mosaic

Wealthy New York art collectors Louisine and Henry Osborne Havemeyer commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany in partnership with Samuel Colman to decorate their mansion on East Sixty-Sixth Street. Tiffany had impressed them with the creative originality he had shown in decorating other homes. They gave Tiffany almost free reign and an unlimited budget. They were his most ardent patrons, and their home was one of his most prestigious decorating projects.

The deftly colored panel in our Collection is from the extensive mosaics that were in the mansion’s entrance hall. Glass mosaics in gold, white, pale green, and iridescent blue covered the walls of the room in a Middle Eastern-influenced design. The focal point of the mosaics was a pair of peacocks over a large fireplace. These peacocks became the prototype for the mosaic reredos Tiffany displayed to much acclaim at the Columbian Exposition of 1893.

The mansion was demolished soon after Louisine Havemeyer died in 1929. The Metropolitan Museum of Art received the Havemeyer’s art collection. Many furnishings and architectural details from the home were auctioned off. The University of Michigan’s College of Architecture bought ten mosaic panels from the entrance hall.