Pair of Chinoiserie Porcelain and Brass Table Lamps, French Work, circa 1970

This elegant pair of table lamps combines blue and white porcelain bodies, decorated in the chinoiserie manner, with brass mounts of refined simplicity. Each lamp rises to fifty-nine centimetres — a generous scale for a pair — with the porcelain bodies occupying the dominant register of the composition and the brass fittings providing a warm metallic counterpoint. The blue and white palette, with its reserves of foliate and figurative motifs drawn from the Chinese decorative repertoire, brings a note of refined exoticism that has been prized in European interiors since the seventeenth century.

The tradition of mounting porcelain fashioned in the Asian manner in French metalwork has deep roots in the history of French decorative arts. From the great ébénistes of the Louis XIV period who incorporated Chinese porcelain into their cabinets, to the marchands-merciers of the eighteenth century who had Oriental vases mounted as candelabra and garnitures, the French luxury trade developed an unrivalled expertise in transforming ceramics into objects of Parisian sophistication. The twentieth century saw a continuation of this tradition, with Parisian ateliers producing porcelain-bodied lamps that honoured this long conversation between East and West.

As a pair, these lamps offer what single examples cannot — symmetry, balance, the sense of a room conceived in full. Placed at the ends of a console, flanking a mirror, or set upon matching bedside tables, they establish an axis around which other objects may be arranged. Their blue and white palette is among the most versatile in the decorative arts, harmonising as readily with lacquered furniture, printed textiles, and gilt bronzes as with the clean lines of a contemporary interior. A distinguished pair for a room of considered decoration.