The flexible shades, composed of white opalescent glass tiles, are adjoined by gilt bronze links and crowned with a refined cap of striated openings. Each glass tile has a fingerprint-shaped indentation with a floral motif. The gilt bronze base is composed of a bamboo shoot and roots. Tiffany had long been fascinated with the aesthetics of bamboo, incorporating bamboo panels in William Henry Vanderbilt's Japanese parlor (1883.) Tiffany considered Bamboo to be one of the essential elements of global architecture, "The hut made of woven bamboo has left its ineffaceable mark upon the architecture of more than half the peoples of the earth." Its versatility allowed it to transform from the frame of a primitive dwelling to the furniture of a Japanese emperor.