My wife and I were able to hit up a few secondhand stores this past weekend and it ended up being productive. One of the items we picked up was this torchiere lamp that appears to be a very early Art Deco style. The base is cast iron and the rest of the lamp is cast brass finished in black lacquer. It's heavy - probably around 50 pounds or so.
It was made by the Mutual Sunset Lamp Company of Brooklyn, NY. The mogul socket looks like it was replaced around 1940, but I'd say the lamp itself dates to the mid to late 1920s from the styling. Based on research done online, the company was renamed in either 1923 or 1924, so the lamp is no older than that, but I'd say it can't be much more than three to five years newer at the most. The glass shade appears to be original. Sharing a few pictures for your approval and to see if anyone else has seen another like it.
Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
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Re: Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
Wow ! I love the crazy zig-zag legs and star motif. It's a curious blend of styles.
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Re: Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
Nice lamp. The feet remind me of a Christopher Dresser design sixty years earlier.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_Ia5FmSaWzjI/TZr2G ... image8.png
Nice find. Can’t tell but it might of had a poly chrome pains scheme when new.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_Ia5FmSaWzjI/TZr2G ... image8.png
Nice find. Can’t tell but it might of had a poly chrome pains scheme when new.
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Re: Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
Gothichome wrote:Nice lamp. The feet remind me of a Christopher Dresser design sixty years earlier.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_Ia5FmSaWzjI/TZr2G ... image8.png
Nice find. Can’t tell but it might of had a poly chrome pains scheme when new.
I had considered it may have had a polychrome paint scheme when new, as it's the right era. But, there are a few places where the lacquer has worn through and it is bare metal underneath, so I'm thinking it always had a black finish. The lacquer is very similar to what was used on "ebony" finish furniture of the '20s and '30s.
Funny you should mention the base design and its similarity to Dresser's work. It does bear a very strong resemblance to some of Dresser's designs of the 1860s and 1870s. My wife first thought it may have been a late 19th Century torchiere that had been converted to electric, but the MSLC mark on the base debunked that theory, so it definitely dates to around 1925 or so. She put it in the room with her Eastlake furniture and it looks right at home even though it's 40-50 years newer.
Last edited by 1918ColonialRevival on Tue Aug 06, 2019 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
That's lovely!
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Re: Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
About the style -- I recently started reading "American Country Houses of the Thirties", originally published in 1932 as "American Country Houses of Today". https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/048 ... UTF8&psc=1
This book has confirmed a gut feeling of mine, that in the 30's, there was a design movement that was looking back at farmhouses of the early part of the century for inspiration. Now I understand the design of my little 1939 house! It wasn't meant to look Art Deco, it was part of this "Country House" movement.
This lamp may be of a similar design inspiration.
This book has confirmed a gut feeling of mine, that in the 30's, there was a design movement that was looking back at farmhouses of the early part of the century for inspiration. Now I understand the design of my little 1939 house! It wasn't meant to look Art Deco, it was part of this "Country House" movement.
This lamp may be of a similar design inspiration.
1939 Minimal Traditional
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Re: Early Art Deco torchiere lamp
GinaC wrote:About the style -- I recently started reading "American Country Houses of the Thirties", originally published in 1932 as "American Country Houses of Today". https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/048 ... UTF8&psc=1
This book has confirmed a gut feeling of mine, that in the 30's, there was a design movement that was looking back at farmhouses of the early part of the century for inspiration. Now I understand the design of my little 1939 house! It wasn't meant to look Art Deco, it was part of this "Country House" movement.
This lamp may be of a similar design inspiration.
Even though the correlation is seldom made, it's obvious that Dresser's designs were one of several influences to the Art Deco movement, particularly in the area of industrial design. For example, the two teapots on this page date to the late 1870s:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/christopher-dresser-teapots/
However, looking at them without knowing the context, one would be tempted think they dated to the first wave of Art Deco from the mid 1920s to the very early 1930s. A lot of the small coffee pots of this era took their design cues from the Dresser pieces made 50 years earlier.
The country/rural style houses of the '30s up to just before WWII were a late addition to the Revival era that started in the very late 19th Century. I guess they figured they had Revival styles of Colonial, Neoclassical, Tudor, Spanish, Mediterranean, Norman, Renaissance, etc., etc., why not Rural America as well? People usually first think of Streamline design when they think of the late '30s, but I'd wager there were many more houses built in the Country style versus Streamline. Small and large appliances of the late '30s often had a Streamline appearance, though the houses they occupied usually weren't similarly styled. It's interesting how sometimes architectural and industrial design paralleled each other and at other times, they were opposite.