Ph Mirror

The name Poul Henningsen is synonymous with the best and most innovative modern Scandinavian lamps and other lighting. The Danish designer created a signature vocabulary of fixtures with tiered and layered shades in sculptural arrangements that are at once naturalistic and geometric. 

Henningsen grew up in a town on the outskirts of Copenhagen and studied architecture at the Technical University of Denmark. He would become a noted art critic, journalist and screenwriter, but his first love was lighting design.

Henningsen’s childhood home was illuminated by oil lamps. When his family switched to electrified lighting, he was alarmed and repelled by the harsh glare cast by an incandescent bulb, and in his late teens he began conducting quasi-scientific experiments to measure which materials and methods best diffused or reflected light to give it a warm brightness. His work came to the attention of the lighting-fixtures firm Louis Poulsen, which sponsored the development of a prototype lamp. The design won a gold medal at the 1925 Paris Expositions Internationales des Arts Decóratifs et Industriels Modernes — from which the term Art Deco derives. The lamp, whose three-part shade is said to be inspired by the arrangement of a dinner plate atop a soup bowl atop a teacup, became the basis for Henningsen’s most successful design, the PH 4/3 desk lamp.

All told, Henningsen would design some 100 lighting fixtures in his career. Some of his most notable creations are hanging lamps, which include the Septima (1929), a pendant composed of seven graduated frosted-glass layers; the Spiral (1942), made of a single ribbon of enameled aluminum; and the Artichoke lamp (1958), whose 70 glass or metal fins in a staggered and graduated arrangement on a central steel frame resemble those of its namesake. The last is likely Henningsen’s masterwork and an icon of mid-20th-century design. Like all Henningsen lighting designs, it is striking, sculptural and — thanks to his insistence on the primacy of the quality of the light cast — superbly functional.

Find a collection of authentic Poul Henningsen table lamps, floor lamps and other lighting on 1stDibs.

Vintage and antique wall mirrors add depth and openness to a space — they can help create the illusion that a narrow hallway isn’t so narrow. But you don’t need hundreds of enormous arched French or Italian mirrors framed in gilded bronze to dress up your home (maybe just a few).

A few well-placed large wall mirrors and other types of mirrors can amplify lighting and help showcase the decorative and architectural features of your home. For the Palace of Versailles during the 17th century, French King Louis XIV ordered the construction of the Hall of Mirrors after spending millions of dollars importing expensive Venetian mirrors from the revered glass-blowing factories on the island of Murano. A mirror-manufacturing rivalry between Paris and Venice took shape, and soon, across from 17 large windows that open out over the adjacent Palace Gardens on one side of the Hall, more than 350 mirrors — large mirrors made of groupings of small panes — were installed, effectively bringing the radiant colors of the outdoors into the opulent corridor.

Wall mirrors for your living room can work miracles — pull your landscaping’s colors and textures indoors, Louis XIV–style, by covering the length of an interior wall across from your living-room windows with wall mirrors.

For a similar effect, surrounding your mid-century modern wall mirror with leafy air plants and fern floor plants can amplify the sense of serenity that greenery offers in your home. Choose wall mirror frame styles to match your home’s decor, or shop for a frameless, organically shaped mirror that’s cut or beveled for a clean yet distinctive showpiece. For a free-spirited Bohemian feel, create a cluster of mismatched antique wall mirrors — an arrangement of circular Art Deco wall mirrors, Rococo-style silver leaf mirrors and decorative oval Victorian mirrors could add spice to an otherwise unadorned dining-room wall.

Elsewhere, there’s nothing vain about buying a full-length mirror for your bedroom, bathroom or walk-in closet to help you perfect your look for the day. Another may be needed in your entryway for a last-minute ensemble inspection. In fact, a shimmering 18th-century hall of mirrors awaits visitors behind the steel door of Stephen Cavallo’s atelier in Manhattan.

“We like to see the look on people’s faces when they walk in,” says Cavallo.

Decorating your home and office with wall mirrors is an art form in and of itself — get started today with the variety of antique and vintage wall mirrors on 1stDibs.