The Duffner & Kimberly Company was incorporated in 1906 to directly compete with Tiffany Studios. Their purpose was to produce a very high-end product in mosaic art glass motifs. This retail product line including stained-glass window commissions, memorial plaques, and a line of leaded mosaic lamps.
Duffner & Kimberly created original designs for their lamps, and their workmanship and choice of materials were of the highest quality. To this end, the partnership of Frank Joseph Duffner, a former employee of both the Bradley and Hubbard Company and the Phoenix Glass Company, and Oliver Kimberly, a former Tiffany Studios employee and recent St. Louis exhibition grand prize winner, was formed.
Duffner and Kimberly employed the services of Hamilton T. Howell to design lamps and specific bases. These produced a premier lamp line that fit comfortably into the period home without dominating the decor; rather the lamps complemented it. While Tiffany Studios used a freer, more organic style for their lamps, Duffner & Kimberly lamps were formal and more structured. Howell designed specific basis to be use for specific shades, creating a fixed period piece. This was especially true of the earliest, most expensive, and most aggressively advertised models.
Duffner and Kimberly produced their lamp masterpieces only for seven years, and their most extensive output was in the first two years of their existence, 1906 and 1907. Financial recession in United States, as well as a change in popular taste to simpler and less expensive items, doomed the fancy products from Duffner and Kimberly. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1913.
These lamps are a treat to view, especially taken in the context of their times. They show an original American art form with design, ingenuity, and workmanship at its finest.