Pair of Midcentury Table Lamps Model 540, Gino Sarfatti, Arteluce, Italy, 1970s
View Similar Items
Pair of Midcentury Table Lamps Model 540, Gino Sarfatti, Arteluce, Italy, 1970s
About the Item
- Creator:Arteluce (Maker),Gino Sarfatti (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 8.67 in (22 cm)Width: 4.73 in (12 cm)Depth: 4.73 in (12 cm)
- Sold As:Set of 2
- Power Source:Plug-in
- Voltage:220-240v
- Lampshade:Included
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1970
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Praha, CZ
- Reference Number:Seller: RF1stDibs: LU2456334529002
Gino Sarfatti
That a spiky, futuristic chandelier named “Sputnik,” which was highly suggestive of the Soviet satellite of the same name, designed by an Italian engineer could predate the space age and the satellite’s launch by a few decades is the stuff of legend. But in 1939, Venetian-born Gino Sarfatti channeled his obsession with light and expert engineering skills into a design so bold it predicted the future. He would go on to design around 700 lighting products in his lifetime — each table lamp, wall light, pendant and chandelier superb and unorthodox in shape.
Sarfatti’s singular focus on creating opulent lighting designs that were rational in their use of resources makes him one of the most innovative lighting designers in history. He was studying to be an aeronautical engineer at the University of Genoa when his family’s financial troubles led him to drop out and move to Milan to help. During this time, he built a lamp for a friend using a coffee machine’s electric components and a glass vase. This exercise sparked his fascination with lighting, and he went on to found Arteluce in 1939. What followed was a period of working with skilled artisans and tinkering with materials instead of sketching. The self-taught designer soon established himself as a creator of provocative, sculptural luxury lighting. Through the company, he collaborated with some of the 20th century’s most influential designers, such as Vittoriano Viganò, who worked on Arteluce lighting between 1946 and 1960. In the 1950s and ’70s, Franco Albini, Franca Helg, Ico Parisi and Massimo Vignelli all contributed designs.
Sarfatti used resources mindfully and injected functionality into everything he designed. His light fixtures were lightweight, easy to take apart and reassemble and could be affordably repaired. This marriage of utilitarianism and glamour lent Sarfatti’s designs a clean, minimal yet arresting splendor, based on their graphical forms and construction.
After World War II, Sarfatti embraced new wiring technologies and materials like plexiglass, such as his 1972 project with Carlo Mollino that filled the Teatro Regio in Turin with hundreds of plexiglass pipes. In 1973, Sarfatti sold Arteluce to FLOS. His foresight, invention and fearlessness as a designer are revered to this day.
Find a collection of vintage Gino Sarfatti lighting now on 1stDibs.
Arteluce
The lighting maker Arteluce was one of the companies at the heart of the creative explosion in postwar Italian design. The firm’s founder and guiding spirit, Gino Sarfatti (1912–85), was an incessant technical and stylistic innovator who almost single-handedly reinvented the chandelier as a modernist lighting form.
Sarfatti attended the University of Genoa to study aeronautical engineering but was forced to drop out when his father’s company went out of business. His mechanical instincts led him to turn his attention to lighting design — and he founded Arteluce as a small workshop in Milan in 1939. Sarfatti’s father was a Jew, so the family fled to Switzerland in 1943, but after the war — largely thanks to Sarfatti’s insistence on efficiency of design and manufacture — Arteluce quickly established itself as a top firm. Though Sarfatti continued as chief designer through the 1950s and ’60s, he also enlisted other designers such as Franco Albini and Massimo Vignelli to contribute work. Sarfatti sold Arteluce to FLOS — a rival Italian lighting maker — in 1973 and retired to pursue a more traditional avocation: collecting and dealing rare postage stamps.
Sarfatti is regarded by many collectors as a pioneer of minimalist design. He pared down his lighting works to their essentials, focusing on practical aspects such as flexibility of use. His most famous light, the 2097 chandelier, is a brilliant example of reductive modernist design, featuring a central cylinder from which branches numerous supporting fixtures extending like spokes on a wheel. Similarly, his 566 table lamp is a simple canister, able to be raised or lowered on a stem, holding a half-chrome bulb. Despite the marked functionality of his designs, Sarfatti did have a sprightly side: His 534 table lamp, with its cluster of rounded enameled shades, resembles a vase full of flowers, the Sputnik chandelier (model 2003) was inspired by fireworks and the brightly colored plastic disks of the 2072 chandelier look like lollipops. No matter the style, Sarfatti concentrated first and foremost on the character of light created — and any Arteluce lamp is a modernist masterpiece.
- Midcentury Pair of Table Lamps /Drukov, 1970sBy DrukovLocated in Praha, CZMade in Czechoslovakia Made of glass, metal and brass Re-polished Fully functional Original condition.Category
Vintage 1970s Czech Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsMetal
$369 Sale Price / set20% Off - Pair of Design Midcentury Table Lamps, 1970sLocated in Praha, CZ- Czechoslovakia, 1970s - circa 1970s - Good original condition.Category
Vintage 1970s Czech Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsMetal
- Pair of Midcentury Table Lamps Kamenicky Senov, 1970sBy Kamenicky SenovLocated in Praha, CZ- Very nice style of lighting - Marked by label.Category
Vintage 1970s Czech Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsChrome
- Pair of Midcentury Table Lamps, Space Age, 1970sBy Joe ColomboLocated in Praha, CZ- Very nice style of lighting - rare type.Category
Vintage 1970s Czech Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsPlastic
- Pair of Midcentury Table Lamps Hillebrand, Germany, 1970sBy Hillebrand, Egon HillebrandLocated in Praha, CZ- nice style of lighting - marked by label - rare type - adjustable - bauhaus and industrial style.Category
Vintage 1970s German Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsMetal
- Pair of Midcentury Table Lamps Kamenicky Senov, 1970sBy Kamenicky SenovLocated in Praha, CZ- very rare type - marked by label - nice style of lighting.Category
Vintage 1970s Czech Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsBrass
- Gino Sarfatti Table Lamps Model 540P by Arteluce, Italy, 1968By Gino Sarfatti, ArteluceLocated in Roosendaal, Noord BrabantFantastic pair of table or wall lamps model 540P designed by Gino Sarfatti and manufactured by Arteluce, Italy, 1968. These table lamps have a plexiglass bas...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsAluminum
- Gino Sarfatti Table Lamp Model 540P for Arteluce, Italy, 1968By Gino Sarfatti, ArteluceLocated in Hagenbach, DEA beautiful midcentury table lamps designed by Gino Sarfatti for Arteluce in 1968. It is fascinating with its beautiful brown shade and plexiglass body. The lamps are in very good vi...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsAluminum
- Gino Sarfatti model 540G for Arteluce Italy 1968By Arteluce, Gino SarfattiLocated in Roosendaal, Noord BrabantThis rare and large version of the Gino Sarfatti Model 540 G (G=grande), produced by Arteluce Italy in 1968, is a remarkable lighting fixture that showcases the innovative design sen...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsAluminum
$5,491 / item - Set of Gino Sarfatti Table Lamps Model 540P for Arteluce, Italy, 1968By Gino Sarfatti, ArteluceLocated in Hagenbach, DEA beautiful pair of midcentury table lamps designed by Gino Sarfatti for Arteluce in 1968. It is fascinating with its beautiful chrome shade and plexiglass body. The lamps are in ver...Category
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsAluminum
$2,229 Sale Price / set30% OffFree Shipping - Gino Sarfatti 600C Table Lamp Arteluce, 1970sBy Gino Sarfatti, ArteluceLocated in San Benedetto Del Tronto, ITDesigned by Gino Sarfatti in 1966, model 600 is an authentic and distinctive design masterpiece. The idea was inspired by the bean bag ashtrays. The leather base evokes a tennis ball. Thanks to the lead balls...Category
Vintage 1970s Italian Space Age Table Lamps
MaterialsMetal
- Gino Sarfatti & Arteluce Table Lamp Model 569/N Italy, 1956By Gino Sarfatti, ArteluceLocated in La Teste De Buch, FRTable lamp model 569 N by Gino Sarfatti & Arteluce Designed in 1956 and made in Italy. Adjustable reflector in aluminium lacquered black, cast iron trumpet-shaped base lacquered ...Category
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
MaterialsAluminum, Brass