Born Clara Pierce Wolcott Driscoll (December 16, 1861-November 6, 1944), Driscoll was the head of the Women’s Glass Cutting Department at Tiffany Studios and a successful designer who created some of the most elaborate and celebrated lamps. In spite of losing her father at age 12, Clara and her three sisters were encouraged to pursue higher education. After attending Western Reserve School of Design for Women (now Cleveland Institute of Art) she worked for a furniture maker, eventually moving to New York City where she continued course at the Metropolitan Museum Art School. Remaining in New York for work opportunities, Driscoll was hired by Tiffany in 1888, working on and off for more than 20 years. She left the company (as required) when she married in 1889, returning after her husband, Francis Driscoll, died in 1892. She was engaged again in 1896 (Edwin Waldo abandoned the relationship), ultimately remaining with Tiffany until she married Edward Booth in 1909. In 2007, the New York Historical Society produced an exhibition and catalog, A New Light on Tiffany – Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls, based on her recently discovered letters that provided a great deal of new information about the structure of the studio and attribution of designs. Documented lamp and shade designs by Driscoll include the Cobweb (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), Dragonfly and Water (Chrysler Museum of Art), Butterfly with Primrose Base, and Deep Sea (in collaboration with Agnes Northrop and Alice Gouvy). Early lamps that include the sophisticated use of mosaic bases and blown globes elements such as appear in the Lotus Lamp are confidentially attributed to Driscoll.

Driscoll assisted in the production of windows but moved eventually into management and made decisions about the lamp and fancy good production. According to her writing, she yearned for a more creative role though. An excellent manager, her lamp department had to remain financially viable while others did not and she dealt with constraints of standardization and the cost of materials. In one letter to her family, Driscoll complained about the latitude other designers enjoyed: “Their work is practically the private enterprise of a rich man, and they never consider anything but the question of beauty while I have to consider the cost of production at every step – beside being interrupted in my work by all manner of things relating to business rather than Art.” Lamps and fancy goods were profit items and allowed Tiffany to indulge greater experimentation in other areas of the Studio. Given constraints, it is reasonable to assume that the making of the Lotus Lamp was limited to design on request. The complexity of matching a large shade of unusual shape with a mosaic base and eight blown shades involved the talent and coordination of many craftspeople. [Some excerpts from Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass]