Arteluce Donald

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, Sarfatti's 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.

Find vintage Arteluce table lamps, chandeliers, floor lamps and other lighting on 1stDibs.

The right table lamp, outwardly sculptural chandelier or understated wall pendant can work wonders for your home. While we’re indebted to thinkers like Thomas Edison for critically important advancements in lighting and electricity, we’re still finding new ways to customize illumination to fit our personal spaces all these years later. A wide range of antique and vintage lighting can be found on 1stDibs.

Today, lighting designers like the self-taught Bec Brittain have used the flexible structure of LEDs to craft glamorous solutions by working with what is typically considered a harsh lighting source. By integrating glass and mirrors, reflection can be used to soften the glow from LEDs and warmly welcome light into any space.

Although contemporary innovators continue to impress, some of the classics can’t be beat. 

Just as gazing at the stars allows you to glimpse the universe’s past, vintage chandeliers like those designed by Gino Sarfatti and J. & L. Lobmeyr, for example, put on a similarly stunning show, each with a rich story to tell.

As dazzling as it is, the Arco lamp, on the other hand, prioritizes functionality — it’s wholly mobile, no drilling required. Designed in 1962 by architect-product designers Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, the piece takes the traditional form of a streetlamp and creates an elegant, arching floor fixture for at-home use.

There is no shortage of modernist lighting similarly prized by collectors and casual enthusiasts alike — there are Art Deco table lamps created in a universally appreciated style, the Tripod floor lamp by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Greta Magnusson Grossman's sleek and minimalist Grasshopper lamps and, of course, the wealth of mid-century experimental lighting that emerged from Italian artisans at Arredoluce, FLOS and many more are hallmarks in illumination innovation. 

With decades of design evolution behind it, home lighting is no longer just practical. Crystalline shaping by designers like Gabriel Scott turns every lighting apparatus into a luxury accessory. A new installation doesn’t merely showcase a space; carefully chosen ceiling lights, table lamps and floor lamps can create a mood, spotlight a favorite piece or highlight your unique personality.

The sparkle that your space has been missing is waiting for you amid the growing collection of antique, vintage and contemporary lighting for sale on 1stDibs.