Curator- & Conservator-led Exhibition Preview Tour of Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany

Join curator Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen and paper conservator Marina Ruiz Molina for a private tour of this exciting new exhibition that explores the creative process behind some of Tiffany Studios’ most celebrated works. Frelinghuysen and Ruiz Molina will offer an introduction to the exhibition in the galleries and discuss these rarely seen works on paper and discuss their collaboration, as well as the extensive conservation project that yielded many new insights to these drawings and questions of collaboration and studio practice for Tiffany Studios.

*Please note that we hope to offer a similar tour in early February, during Drawings Week. As space on such tours is limited, we encourage members based in the New York area to join us for the October tour so we can open as many spots as possible to members from out of town in February.

Speaker bios:

Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen is the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A graduate of Princeton University, she received her M.A. at the Winterthur/University of Delaware M.A. Program in Early American Culture. She has curated and published widely on a variety of subjects relating to American ceramics, glass, stained glass, late nineteenth-century furniture, the Gilded Age, and many aspects of the work of Louis C. Tiffany. Among her numerous exhibitions, articles, and publications include Herter Brothers: Furniture and Interiors for a Gilded Age (1994), Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall—An Artist’s Country Estate (2006), Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age (2016), The Stained Glass Windows of St. Andrew’s Dune Church (2021); Gifts from the Fire: American Ceramics, 1880-1950 (2021); and Luminous Garden: Agnes Northrop and the Women of Tiffany Studios (2026), the latter celebrating a transformative acquisition and installation in The American Wing.

In 2014 Frelinghuysen was awarded the Frederic E. Church Award for contributions to American Culture, and in 2016 she was the Clarice Smith Distinguished Scholar Lecture for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Her most recent project, and the subject of her lecture is an exhibition and catalogue, Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany, which opens at The Met in mid-October and closes in early February, an in-depth look at a selection from the Museum’s extraordinary holdings of this rare material.

In addition to her work at The Met, Frelinghuysen serves on the board of the Charles Hosmer Morse Foundation, Shelburne Museum, the Editorial Board of Ceramics in America, and is an emeritus chair of the American Ceramic Circle, and emeritus board member of the Princeton University Art Museum Advisory Council, and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.

Marina Ruiz Molina joined the Department of Paper Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008 to complete a Research Scholarship and became a member of the staff in 2010. She holds an MA from the University of Málaga, Spain, and a Graduate degree in Conservation from the Escuela Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales in Madrid, Spain. She serves as liaison across diverse museum collections with a focus on South and Southeast Asian art on paper and has contributed significantly to The Met’s ongoing efforts towards the standardization and implementation of best practices for multiband imaging. As an active researcher and mentor, Ruiz Molina publishes, presents, and teaches regularly in the United States, Europe, and India.

Since 2010 Ruiz Molina has worked on the conservation and study of drawings created by the studios of Louis C. Tiffany. Highlights of her research on the subject include the article co-written with Christine Olsen Drawing, Photography, and the Design of Tiffany Studios’ Te Deum Laudamus Mosaic Triptych in The Metropolitan Museum Journal 51 (2017) followed by a presentation on the topic at the 56th annual Seminar at The Corning Museum of Glass; and “The Conservation of Tiffany Studio Drawings: Finding New Ways to Reconstruct Complex Paper Loss” in The Book and Paper Group 33 (2014). Ruiz Molina has collaborated closely with Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen on the exhibition and catalogue Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany.

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Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany
October 22, 2026 – February 7, 2027
Exhibition Details:

The dazzling stained-glass windows, lamps, mosaics, and interiors from the studios of the visionary American artist Louis Comfort Tiffany—hallmarks of the Gilded Age—began as drawings created by the many talented designers in Tiffany’s studios. Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany showcases rare design drawings to take us behind the scenes of the studios where the drawings were made and ultimately transformed into enduring works of art. Intended for commissions dating from the mid-1880s through the 1920s in the U.S. and internationally, the nearly 120 luminous watercolor drawings present the first step in the artistic process for interiors and decorations for the grand mansions, civic and sacred spaces, and other buildings created during America’s Gilded Age, the post–Civil War era that saw an unprecedented accumulation of wealth.

Many of the drawings document works that have since been lost, damaged, or destroyed, while others showcase ideas for designs that were never realized. The exhibition also brings together extraordinary stained-glass windows, mosaics, enamelwork, and examples of the studio’s iconic lamps in side-by-side displays with their original designs, allowing a rare view of the journey from artistic conception to finished product. Virtually everything produced in Tiffany’s workshops was the result of a collaborative process; the initial steps took place in the studio where artists Tiffany hired—often émigrés and women—realized his vision.

The featured drawings, all from The Met collection, have never before been studied in depth, and the exhibition celebrates the decades-long conservation initiative that restored them to their full beauty. Along with new insights into the artists’ process and design inspiration, the drawings offer a unique opportunity to peel back the layers of some of the most heralded creations produced by Tiffany’s legendary studios.

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This event is open to members of The Drawing Foundation. Log in to your membership account to register or sign up to become a member today.

This event is organized by The Drawing Foundation in partnership with The Met as part of On Drawings 2026.

Image: Louis C. Tiffany (1848–1933), Design for a Church Interior, c. 1892-1902. Transparent and opaque watercolor, metallic paint, and graphite on paper, 22 x 29 11/16 in. (55.9 x 75.4 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67.654.39