As with her previous novels including Luncheon of the Boating Party and Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland gives the reader a well-researched glimpse into a personal facet of art history in Clara and Mr. Tiffany. Louis Comfort Tiffany employed unmarried women in his New York glass studio supposedly because of their dexterity in working with small pieces of glass, but also to protect the company from strikes by the all-male unions during the 1890s. Clara Driscoll, a young widow, was the artist in charge of the women’s cutting department. She is also the one who is thought to have come up with the idea for the leaded stained-glass lampshades that won Tiffany awards at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 and the Paris Exhibition Universelle of 1899.

Vreeland does an excellent job describing Clara’s pent up desire for recognition of her work and as an artist in a man’s world along with the many sacrifices she and the other “Tiffany Girls” make in their personal lives to stay employed and make a living. The reader also gets an understanding of the many changes happening in New York and the world at the turn of the nineteenth century. The book offers many topics for discussion and would be a good choice for book groups.

Allison