My client brought this original Tiffany Daffodil lamp in to see what the procedure was for restoration. Pretty much half of the shade was missing. My customer's mother had it in this condition for 40 years. His mother had just passed away and he decided to attempt to have it restored.
I informed him of all the problems we will most likely encounter. First, as is so often the case in old shades, finding matching glass can be very challenging. There are seemingly thousands of different shades of each color. Then you have to try to match the texture, and the most dificult, find glass that looks the same with or without background light as the original.
We were fortunate to have a mold from Oddessey Studios that was a very close match to the original. We added a little support here and there, but for the most part it worked fine. Through Oddessey we were also able to get a new ring, rim, and cap. All had been destroyed during the accident with the shade. As for the glass, between some old glass we had in stock, and Youghiogheny Glass Company, we were able to completely match the original glass. When we finished the shades the only way to tell where the new pieces were was to look at the shade with the light out. The new pieces were very clean of course. We left some of the old patina(dirt) on the original glass. When I first started restoring art glass I would clean thm up entirely. I found out early that the customer liked the old look the dirt creates.
I was astounded that we were able to duplicate the original so well. Of course the customer felt that the money was very well spent.
