Featuring 45 lamps from The Neustadt’s renowned collection, Tiffany or Ti-phony? is the largest traveling exhibition of Tiffany lamps to date. Starting with a seemingly simple question—is a lamp genuine Tiffany or a deliciously deceptive Ti-phony?—this exhibition sheds light on an unexpected tale of innovation, desire, and imitation. Exciting new research, careful comparison, and engaging interactive elements offer a fresh and fascinating perspective on these beloved artworks. By learning to look closely, visitors will uncover clues to the lamps’ true identities and discover why it’s important (and fun!) to spot a fake.

It begins in the late 1800s, in the heart of the Gilded Age, when Louis C. Tiffany’s artistic vision met a boom of industrial innovation and unprecedented wealth in America. A painter and colorist, Tiffany was keen to explore the creative potential of glass. Unsatisfied with options produced by existing glasshouses, he founded his own furnaces in 1893, where he employed skilled chemists to develop new recipes and decorative effects for sheet and blown glass.

With access to groundbreaking materials and techniques, Tiffany’s studios embarked on an aesthetic odyssey that revolutionized glass artistry. His designers could now envision intricate, exuberant lampshades using a palette of hues and textures unlike anything seen before. Skilled artisans brought these designs to life by painstakingly selecting glass, then cutting and assembling the pieces into an exquisitely crafted work of art.

Tiffany’s studios produced hundreds of designs and thousands of lamps—no two were identical—so the stage was perfectly set for creating counterfeits. Not every fake Tiffany-style lamp was made with the intent to deceive; some were innocent reproductions that found their way into a murky marketplace. Others, however, were meticulously crafted by contemporary artisans for the sole purpose of profit by deception. We call these forgeries Ti-phonys. Some of them are very, very good.

Tiffany or Ti-phony culminates with an alluring assortment of genuine and fake lamps, and an opportunity for viewers to reflect on how they have experienced the influence of Tiffany lamps.