Gold Leaf Glass Mosaic Hurricane Lamp on Patinated Brass Base, Italian Style, c. 1950–1975

The Piece

A gold mosaic hurricane lamp of real age, a tall flaring glass chimney clad entirely in hand-cut tesserae of gold-leaf glass, set on a turned and patinated brass socle. The tiles are the thing. Each is a small square of clear glass with gold leaf fused behind it, the Venetian gold smalto that mosaicists have used since Byzantium, cut by hand and laid in diagonal courses that wander and tighten as they climb the flare of the chimney, the joints uneven, the grout darkened, the gold behind the glass gone to a soft, mottled, antique warmth with passages of pale champagne, amber and silvery white where the leaf has thinned or oxidized. Scattered through the field, set at random like garnets on a dress, are tiles of copper-red and rust foil, a dozen or so on each face, that catch the light differently from the gold and give the whole surface a slow sparkle. Held to a lamp or a candle, the chimney glows from within like a Byzantine apse in miniature.

The glass sits in a brass base of a form and weight the reproductions never bother with: a turned baluster socle on a broad flat drum foot, cast and spun in solid brass, the lacquer worn through to a deep tobacco patina with spotting and the small dents of use, a seamed ring where the socle meets the foot. The chimney lifts out for a candle or sits over a low bulb. Condition is very good and honest: the tesserae complete with no losses found, the grout aged and stable, a few tiles with the surface frosting of age, the brass with wear, spotting and patina rather than polish, the glass sound. Offered as found, uncleaned and unpolished, which is how it should stay.

History & Provenance

Gold glass mosaic is the oldest luxury surface in the Western world. The mosaicists of Ravenna and Constantinople made it by fusing a leaf of beaten gold between two layers of glass and cutting the sheet into tesserae, and the glasshouses of Murano have made the same gold smalto for the mosaic trade without interruption since the Middle Ages, shipping it to the workshops that lined the churches of Venice, the cafes of Paris and the lobbies of New York. In the twentieth century the material came down off the walls. Between the 1930s and the 1960s the decorative trades of Italy, France and America set gold and colored smalti over glass and metal forms, vases, bottles, bowls, lamp bases and hurricane shades, for the Hollywood Regency and Italian Modern interiors that wanted the shimmer of Byzantium on a cocktail table, and the pieces were sold through the better department stores and decorators as Italian or Venetian mosaic. A hurricane shade clad in gold glass was among the most theatrical of them, made to throw candlelight around a dining room, and the good ones were hand-laid tile by tile on blown glass over a brass base.

The form has been reproduced in quantity since the 1990s in machine-cut mirror and foil tile on pressed glass with thin plated bases, and the difference is visible across a room. This example is the earlier thing: the tesserae are true gold-leaf glass with the leaf oxidized and mottled, the courses are hand-laid and irregular, the grout has aged and darkened, the copper accent tiles have faded unevenly, and the base is solid turned brass with wear through the lacquer. It is unmarked and offered as unattributed Italian or Continental decorative work. The dating rests on the materials and the construction rather than style alone: hand-cut gold smalto, aged mastic and grout, oxidized leaf and a cast and spun brass socle with lacquer wear are consistent with manufacture between about 1950 and 1975.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

Light it and the room changes. A gold mosaic hurricane on a dining table, a sideboard, a mantel or a bar throws a warm, broken, moving light that no plain glass gives, and unlit in daylight it reads as a column of old gold, the kind of object that makes a tablescape look collected rather than bought. It keeps company with brass, walnut, marble, velvet and old mirror, in a Hollywood Regency room, an Italian Modern one, a traditional dining room or a collected modern apartment that wants one piece of theater. Pair it with a plain beeswax pillar, or set it over a low amber bulb and leave it on in the evening. For a designer client it is the statement accent that anchors a console vignette; for a shop it is the piece that stops people at the window.