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Louis Comfort Tiffany began his artistic career as a painter, having studied with George Innes and Samuel Colman in America as well as with various artists in Paris. While he achieved some early success with his orientalist works, his interests were soon drawn to interior furnishings and design. He collaborated with other artisans to form Associated Artists in 1879 and began work on major commissions such as the Mark Twain House (1881) and the White House for President Chester Arthur (1882). He debuted designs for furniture at the 1893 Chicago world's fair, and this armchair is believed to have been among those pieces. Even after he achieved enormous success with his glass production, Tiffany continued to produce interior furnishings and design schemes for artistic interiors throughout the rest of his career.