February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Ray O’Hanlon
A Tiffany window depicting an Irish view was sold for $350,000 at auction in Christie’s of New York last week.
The so-called "Thomas Lynch Window," commissioned in 1905 by Thomas Lynch, a wealthy Irish American, depicts a farmhouse scene near Dungarvan in County Waterford.
It went on the block at Christie’s with a value estimated at between $200,000 and $300,000.
But with the bidding opening at $150,000, the price tag advanced rapidly before it paused briefly at $320,000. A phone bid then came in for $350,000 and the hammer went down.
The 56-by-84-inch window was bought by the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pa., about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
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Greensburg is the same town that Thomas Lynch was living in when he commissioned the great glass designer and artist Louis Comfort Tiffany to make the window for his family home.
Lynch wanted to depict his grandfather’s farm in Ballyduff, near Dungarvan. Lynch, born in Pennsylvania in 1854, was the son of immigrant parents, Patrick and Nancy Daniel Lynch.
A period photograph provided by family members in Dungarvan confirmed to Christie’s that the scene was based on a real building. The Dungarvan Historical Society helped link the window to the old farmstead.
Thomas Lynch was a leading figure in the Pennsylvania coal and coke trade and is credited with coining the phrase "safety first" in the context of the coal mining industry.
After Lynch died in 1914, the house, with its Tiffany Irish window, passed into the hands of his wife, Sarah Agnes McKenna Lynch. The house was handed on to Thomas Lynch Jr. in 1922 before being sold out of the family in 1945.
The window was removed from the house in 1945 but will now be heading back to its town of origin.
Museum spokeswoman Judith O’Toole said the museum was delighted with its new exhibit, particularly given the fact that Lynch’s son, Thomas Lynch Jr., had been a member of the museum’s founding board of directors.
"Apart from being a beautiful example of art, the window will also help us tell the story of immigration to the U.S.," O’Toole said.