An extension of his work in stained glass, Tiffany began to design glass mosaics for interiors. He had been particularly struck by the dazzling Byzantine mosaics he had seen during some of his earlier travels. His mosaic work began in earnest during the late 1880s, primarily for church interiors. This garden landscape mosaic may originally have been in a commission by the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia. Here, Tiffany took the medium far beyond its traditional use of creating a flat decorative composition. Nature in all its abundant glory is the subject.

The work is a tour de force of the mosaic art. Freeing the glass from traditional shapes and colors, Tiffany created extraordinary, luminous illusions in mosaic heretofore unrealizable. The tall, slender cypresses, fashioned from Tiffany's distinctive mottled greens and yellows, are set against a pale multicolored sky of iridescent glass. Two swans carve a slender ripple in the placid shimmering pool, which supports a cluster of pink waterlilies.