{"product_id":"vintage-brass-candlestick-lamp-laurel-tole-shade-c-1965-1985","title":"Vintage Brass Candlestick Lamp with Laurel Tole Shade, c. 1965–1985","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA polished brass candlestick carrying a brown tole shade painted with white laurel swags, each one tied off with a bow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe decoration is the reason to look twice. Around the shade run three swags of laurel — fine paired leaves on a curving stem — each hung from a small tied bow, with a single dot punctuating the gaps between them. Two white lines circle the lower edge. It is drawn with a loaded brush, and the white sits slightly proud of the brown with a stippled edge where the paint has caught.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAbove the shade sits a pierced brass gallery: a band of interlaced strapwork cut right through, so that with the lamp lit the top of the shade throws a ring of small bright shapes onto the ceiling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe base is a turned brass candlestick — a tapering stem with a collar at its waist, rising from a domed and stepped foot, and finishing in a wide drip-pan seat at the top.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eOut of that seat rises a cream candle sleeve, and through it runs the socket, operated by a cast brass turn-key shaped like an old escutcheon key with a scrolled bow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe cord is brown and exits at the base.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eTake the shade first, because with a brown shade of this shape there are three possibilities and only one of them is worth paying for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eIt is not glass and it is not plastic. It is painted sheet metal — tole — and the rim proves it. Look along the lower edge and the metal is rolled over on itself into a wired hem, and at one point there is a lapped seam where the cone was closed. The body is completely opaque: with the bulb lit, light escapes at the top and the bottom and nowhere through the shade at all. Inside, the reflective coat has been laid on by brush, and the strokes are still visible across it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eTole is the old French term for painted tinware, and painted metal shades belong to a specific tradition: the bouillotte and candle lamps of the eighteenth century used them because metal survives a naked flame and a paper or silk shade does not. The form carried over into electricity because the light it throws is better — an opaque shade sends everything down onto the table instead of glowing at you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe vocabulary here is Federal and the accent is American. Laurel swags caught up with ribbon bows, a pierced strapwork gallery, a turned brass candlestick on a stepped foot: this is the colonial-revival decorating idiom that ran through American brass and lighting for decades, driven by the Colonial Williamsburg reproduction programme and the makers who supplied that trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe one mark on the lamp dates it. The underside of the shade carries its original Underwriters Laboratories label, intact and fully legible: UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES INC, LISTED, PORTABLE LAMP, ISSUE J-7228, E-20773. It is the yellow oval adhesive format with a registered-trademark symbol, which is the later of UL’s two long-running lamp-label styles — the printed paper band wrapped around the socket came first. On that evidence, with the colonial-revival design and the brass-and-tole construction, it is offered as c. 1965–1985.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eNothing on the visible surfaces names a maker. That is ordinary in this trade, where brass founders, shade painters and lamp assemblers were three different businesses and the finished lamp went out under a retailer’s name or none at all. It is offered unattributed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrass candlestick table lamp with a painted tole shade\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eShade\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBrown painted sheet metal, hand-decorated with white laurel swags and tied bows and two line borders, with a pierced brass strapwork gallery to the top\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTurned brass candlestick with a collared stem on a domed and stepped foot, with a wide drip-pan seat\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFittings\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCream candle sleeve over the socket; cast brass turn-key in the form of an escutcheon key with a scrolled bow; brown cord\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 18 in tall overall; shade approximately 12 in across the bottom; foot approximately 5 in across\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOriginal Underwriters Laboratories label to the underside of the shade: LISTED, PORTABLE LAMP, ISSUE J-7228, E-20773. No maker’s name on any visible surface. Offered unattributed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1965–1985, on the UL label and the construction. The yellow oval adhesive UL Listed label with a registered-trademark symbol is the later of the two long-running lamp-label formats, following the printed paper band wrapped around the socket. The colonial-revival design and the brass-and-tole build place it in that trade.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eWorking and display-ready; photographed lit. The tole shade is sound with no dents, splits or rust, and the painted decoration is crisp and unfaded with the white still bright. There is scattered fine scratching across the brown ground, most of it shallow and visible only in raking light, and one raised patch of grey residue adhering to the shade where something was stuck on and pulled away. The white line at the lower rim has small losses along its length. The pierced gallery is complete and firm, with slight waviness to its upper edge and a visible join. The brass is bright with good colour and only light handling marks. The socket works and the key turns. Sold as a period lamp on its original cord: have it checked or rewired by an electrician before putting it into regular use. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n  \u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThis is the most useful kind of lamp there is: one that lights a surface instead of a room.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eBecause the shade is opaque metal rather than paper or silk, everything goes downward. On a desk, a hall table, a bedside or a sideboard you get a bright pool where you need it and no glare at eye level. That is why the form exists, and it is why a metal shade beats a fabric one anywhere you actually do something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe pierced gallery is the other half of it. All the light that would otherwise be wasted out of the top escapes through the cut strapwork instead, so a dark ceiling above the lamp fills with a ring of small bright marks. Turn it on in a dim room and it draws the eye immediately.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe colours are as easy as colours get. Warm brown, polished brass, and one clean white line of decoration. It sits with mahogany, walnut, leather, old books, brass and tortoiseshell without a moment’s argument, and against a dark painted wall it reads beautifully.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe scale is right for the places lamps are actually needed. At around eighteen inches it will not dominate a hall console or crowd a nightstand, and it is tall enough to be useful over a desk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAnd the hand-painting is genuinely good. Laurel swags drawn with a loaded brush, each leaf a separate touch, each bow tied a little differently from the last. That is a person at a bench, and at close range it separates this from the moulded and printed shades sold beside it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on use. Have the wiring checked before regular service. The lamp lights, but the cord is of its own age, and a lamp shop will fit a new one for very little.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eFit a bulb of 60 watts or less, or an LED. A metal shade traps heat above the bulb far more than a fabric one, and heat is what lifts and blisters painted decoration from the inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eClean the tole with a barely damp cloth and dry it at once, and never use an abrasive or a solvent on the painted surface. The white decoration is paint on a painted ground and it will come away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eLeave the brass alone unless you want it brighter. It is bright and even as it stands; polish removes lacquer as well as tarnish, and once the lacquer is gone the brass will need polishing again every few months for the rest of its life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48061376561257,"sku":"VE-1620","price":500.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/2E7C461F-CA29-4DD0-A772-3877F3DAD7D0.jpg?v=1789459567","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/vintage-brass-candlestick-lamp-laurel-tole-shade-c-1965-1985","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}