A late 19th-century stained-glass window by Tiffany Studios, which hung in a Connecticut church for more than a century, is headed to auction this June and expected to bring in up to $2 million.
The Boyd Family Memorial Window (The Falls), from 1898, will headline a design sale at Christie’s New York, according to Artnet News. The two-panel composition, installed in 1899 at the Second Congregational Church in Winsted, shows a lush landscape at sunset, with a cascading waterfall in the foreground, and flowering lilies and irises set against distant mountains.
Commissioned by Ellen Wright Boyd in memory of her parents, the window has remained in place for roughly 125 years. Proceeds from the sale will go toward supporting the church’s operations and programming, according to Christie’s.
The work stands out within Tiffany Studios’ output for its subject. Few waterfalls take center stage in the firm’s windows. The piece is also topped by a jeweled medallion, adding to the sense of theatricality that often defines the studio’s late 19th-century commissions.
Its appearance at auction fits into a broader pattern. Over the past few years, major Tiffany windows have begun to circulate more frequently, Artnet News reported, often moving from their site-specific settings into private collections and museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the three-part Garden Landscape (1912) in 2023, while the Danner Memorial Window (1913) sold for $12.4 million at Sotheby’s the following year, setting a record for the studio. Christie’s, for its part, placed the Goddard Memorial Window (1910) at $4.2 million in 2025. Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas, also announced last year that it had acquired Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window) from a Texas church.
The Boyd window has undergone conservation in the past, including restoration work in the 1990s to address deteriorating elements. It is one of several Tiffany commissions still held by the church, alongside another figurative window and a mosaic installed in honor of a longtime deacon. Now, after more than a century filtering light into the same sanctuary, the window will be seen in a completely different setting: the auction room.
