A large 33 inch glass diameter custom painted glass chandelier by artist Jenny Floravita featuring peacocks and romantic flowers.
This stunning custom reverse painted glass chandelier with peacocks, magnolias and red poppies was created special for a client who’s dining room has furniture with historic pedigree, having been passed down through the family and having served in fine homes, one being on St. Charles Street in New Orleans. So of course I have to create a chandelier that will compliment the surroundings well! I love it when clients tell me more about the room and surroundings where they will be installing a chandelier!
The story behind this special piece begins with the peacocks. Beautiful Peacocks in Kauai, a 24 inch chandelier in my collection served as the starting point. The design and colors were pulled from this this one piece first and then I added flowers and adjusted colors to make the chandelier special for my clients. I featured both male and female peacocks—the female is also a very beautiful bird.
In this piece, my client also asked for me to feature his special pet named Rusty who had departed a couple years prior. Normally I don’t encourage pet portraits in glass but for this piece, I made an exception. Rusty’s face is flanked with magnolias—the inspiration came from the fact that the furniture in the dining room had graced fine homes in the historic district of New Orleans. I thought magnolias would be a beautiful contribution and would frame Rusty’s face well and the leaves would also allow for rusty brown colors to continue in the piece.
A large 33 inch glass diameter custom painted glass chandelier by artist Jenny Floravita featuring peacocks and romantic flowers.
Red flowers were also an important color for this painted chandelier and I thought it would be better to decrease some of the pinks that are originally in Beautiful Peacocks in Kauai and instead add more red. Nearly all of the flowers from the smaller chandelier were incorporated into this large custom reverse painted glass chandelier. As glass bowls go larger in diameter, the glass becomes exponentially larger in surface space and this allows for more room to paint!
A large 33 inch glass diameter custom painted glass chandelier by artist Jenny Floravita featuring peacocks and romantic flowers.
{Side note: I can tell you this: most spaces can handle both a large painted glass chandelier or more ‘normal’ 24 inch size painted chandelier. It’s truly rare when a room can do only one or the other. I’ve installed 24 inch chandeliers in many spaces with large vaults and big square footage…and I’ve also installed chandeliers in small breakfast rooms. The difference between the two sizes is that large chandeliers create more drama in the room…but both sizes will fill the space well. My reverse painted glass chandeliers have a lot of artistry into them and they create beautiful focal points.
Some of the flowers were inspired from the 24 inch peacock chandelier that is in my collection and as this glass bowl is so much larger, I filled in areas with big swoops of dramatically painted red poppies, creating my favorite section for this chandelier}.
A large 33 inch glass diameter custom painted glass chandelier by artist Jenny Floravita featuring peacocks and romantic flowers.
Ahhh…Rusty! To be honest I was very concerned about doing justice to dear Rusty. He has reddish brown colors and the client and I thought that we could incorporate peacock feathers around him. To pull him further into the design, I painted an elegant sweep of large magnolias—the leaves have some of his colors!!! The magnolias then floated right up to the male peacock. In the composition I painted the tropical pink ginger flowers and red Hawaiian torch ginger behind him—these flowers were in Beautiful Peacocks in Kauai. On the opposite side of Rusty I painted a big bouquet of romantic red poppies and roses.
A large 33 inch glass diameter custom painted glass chandelier by artist Jenny Floravita featuring peacocks and romantic flowers.
As it’s tough to sometimes let chandelier go, I took some video of this piece…so that I could enjoy it from time to time. One thing I seldom talk about is how difficult it was in my early years to part with paintings. I actually worked with a life coach to overcome that issue. Art requires putting your life’s soul and energy into each piece and parting with paintings and chandeliers isn’t always the easiest thing to do and yet it’s necessary in order to make a living in the arts (and in my case, to even provide chandeliers to the public at all as fabricating chandelier is a hugely expensive endeavor).
The forged chandelier fixture seen here is my Ornate style and it has a minimum height of 41 inches if installed with a ceiling canopy and chain or a fixed height of 35 inches, as a modified version. A ceiling height of 9 feet is the minimum height for a large chandelier and the installation would need to be over a table. If you imagine installing a large chandelier in an entry way or living room you need a taller ceiling to handle a piece of this size.
A large 33 inch glass diameter custom painted glass chandelier by artist Jenny Floravita featuring peacocks and romantic flowers.
I make my own glass bowls and forged fixtures. My studio is located in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. There is a lot of time that goes into each of my painted chandeliers and I do not use studio artists—all of my chandeliers are painted and signed only by me, Jenny Floravita. These are heirloom quality works of art. My work is widely collected and will be enjoyed for generations to come.
The room that this custom reverse painted glass chandelier will be installed into has marble floors and a 10 foot ceiling…and of course gorgeous , well crafted dining room furniture—the kind that gets passed down through generations and stands up to the tests of time. It’s an honor to create a custom painted glass chandelier for such a space!
If you are considering a large chandelier, feel free to call me at 925-625-7969 to discuss the space that you envision a chandelier in.
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