The Tiffany Girls

Set in 1899 New York City and Paris, this historical novel follows three women whose lives converge at Louis Comfort Tiffany's glass studio as they work toward the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, a world's fair showcasing achievements in art, science, and industry. Through their intertwined stories, the novel explores the struggles of women artists seeking recognition and independence at the turn of the 20th century.

In July 1899, 17-year-old Emilie Pascal flees Paris as police arrive to arrest her father, Dominique Pascal, a portrait painter and notorious art forger. Her friends Jean, a young artist who loves her, and his sister Marie help her escape across the rooftops. Before leaving the city, Emilie stops at the Pont des Arts, the bridge where her mother drowned herself in the Seine years earlier, driven to suicide by Dominique's abuse. Carrying a forged letter of recommendation addressed to Louis Comfort Tiffany and a portfolio of sketches, Emilie sails for New York, determined to reinvent herself as a glass artist after discovering Tiffany's iridescent favrile glass, art glass with color embedded in the material, at a Paris gallery months earlier.

Meanwhile in Manhattan, Clara Driscoll manages the women's division at Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, overseeing the women who design and construct much of Tiffany's celebrated glasswork. Clara battles the business manager, Mr. Pringle Mitchell, over expenses while replacing workers lost to marriage, since company policy requires immediate dismissal of married women. With Mr. Tiffany abroad in Europe, Clara must keep the studio on schedule for the Exposition while wrestling with her own stalled dragonfly lamp design.

Grace Griffith, one of Clara's best copyists, spends her days scaling small watercolor designs into full-size cartoons used as templates for cutting glass. At night, she leads a secret double life as a political cartoonist, sketching caricatures she sells to newspapers under the pen name G. L. Griffith, concealing her gender to protect her position at Tiffany's.

When Emilie arrives at the studio after traveling straight from the docks, she learns Mr. Tiffany is abroad. Overcome by heat and hunger, she faints while presenting her portfolio to Clara. Grace gathers the scattered sketches and discovers two kinds of art: meticulous scale drawings of extraordinary precision and bold expressionist paintings in aggressive colors. Despite suspicion from Alice Gouvy, Clara's childhood friend and fellow designer, about Emilie's unannounced arrival, Clara is desperate for cutters and offers a week's trial, asking Grace to mentor the newcomer.

Grace arranges for Emilie to share her room at Mrs. Bertolucci's boardinghouse. Their housemates include Lotte Wilson, a quiet cutter, and Lotte's older sister Maggie, who has the understanding of a young child and works as a sweeper at the studio. Emilie passes her trial after Agnes Northrop, the senior designer, evaluates her sketches and declares them "the most talent we've had in many, many years."

Grace's double life grows dangerous when she attends a garment workers' protest where hired thugs attack the marchers. She is knocked down a stairwell and loses her sketchbook. When Emilie finds her climbing through the kitchen window that night, battered and disheveled, Emilie initially fears Grace is being abused, drawing on her own experience with her father's violence. Grace confesses her real secret. Charlie Murray, a reporter for the Sun, traces the lost sketchbook to the boardinghouse and discovers that G. L. Griffith, the cartoonist whose work he admires, is a woman. He promises to keep her secret, and they develop a professional partnership.

Emilie's talent quickly distinguishes her. She is promoted to the "Four Seasons" window, a four-panel work Mr. Tiffany conceived as the centerpiece of his Exposition display. When Mr. Tiffany returns from Europe, he criticizes her green glass on an overcast day and sweeps his cane across her worktable, shattering a piece. Emilie confronts him directly. The next day, in sunlight, she presents several green samples; he chooses the same one he rejected, confirming her original selection. During this visit, she casually suggests overlapping the wing tips on Clara's stalled dragonfly design, unlocking Clara's creative block.

At the Corona furnaces, where Tiffany's glass is produced, Emilie meets Amon Bronsky, a powerfully built young glass artist whose skill at shaping molten glass captivates her. Clara presents her completed dragonfly lamp to Mr. Tiffany, who enthusiastically approves it, overriding Mitchell's cost objections. The design features filigree wings, delicate metal latticework overlaying the glass, and a mosaic tile base.

At the Arts Society Christmas Ball, Leland Bishop, a young art dealer with galleries in London, Paris, and New York, invites Emilie to waltz. Mr. Tiffany warns Bishop to leave his employee alone, protective of both Emilie and his studio's interests. Bishop begins courting Emilie, and they discover shared passions for art.

Meanwhile, a crisis develops around Maggie Wilson, who has become fixated on Jack Ratner, a pottery-department worker who has been meeting her secretly in the building's corridors. One day Maggie steals Lotte's savings and disappears. That night she staggers home, her petticoat soaked in blood. Jack had taken her to a woman who performed a botched abortion, then abandoned her. A doctor says Maggie will not survive and warns that hospitalization would result in her arrest under the Comstock laws, statutes criminalizing anything related to contraception or abortion. Maggie dies during the night. Grace tells Clara the truth, and Mr. Tiffany fires Jack without a reference. Grace channels her fury into illustrated panels about Maggie's story, but Charlie advises her to build her reputation before taking on such subjects. He confesses he wants more than a professional partnership, and they share their first kiss.

Through the winter, Clara's dragonfly lamp is unveiled to acclaim. Emilie works through the remaining "Four Seasons" panels in collaborative sessions with Mr. Tiffany, and she begins sketching again at night, resisting the pull of her own suppressed artistic ambitions. In spring 1900, the team sails to Paris. On the last night before docking, Amon draws Emilie close and kisses her on deck. She responds with desire but pulls away, fearing that passionate men, like her father, are capable of both great art and terrible destruction.

The Tiffany Pavilion opens at the Exposition. The "Four Seasons" window receives the Grand Prix, the highest honor, while Clara's dragonfly and dandelion lamps and Northrop's "Magnolia" window win gold medals. Leland arrives from London and takes Emilie to the Grand Palais, where they encounter a young Spanish painter named Ruiz Pablo Picasso. But Emilie's past catches up with her when Jean, now gaunt and deteriorated, discovers her at the pavilion. At a bistro that evening, he denounces her as "the forger's daughter" before the entire room. The rumor spreads, and when Mr. Tiffany is summoned to the Exposition's board of commissioners, everyone assumes his awards will be revoked.

Believing she has destroyed Mr. Tiffany's triumph, Emilie writes farewell letters and goes to the Pont des Arts, standing at the parapet where her mother jumped. Grace finds the notes and races to the bridge with Mr. Tiffany close behind. He reveals that the commission summoned him not to strip his awards but to name him Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, France's grandest honor. Leland had told him about Emilie's parentage months ago, and Tiffany chose to keep her because she has "an eye" and is "good." As they walk back toward the hotel, they begin arguing about a new window design. Clara watches from behind with bemused affection.

An epilogue set in January 1933 depicts Mr. Tiffany's funeral at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Emilie drops a red rose into the grave. She sees Grace with Charlie, now a paid political cartoonist, and Clara with her husband. Amon, silver-haired, stands with his wife. Someone comes to stand beside Emilie. She takes his arm and says, "Come, Leland, let us join the others," revealing that she and Leland Bishop have ended up together.