Gaetano Sciolari Crystal Prism and Gold Washed Brass Chandelier

The work of celebrated mid-century Italian lighting designer and entrepreneur Angelo Gaetano Sciolari became widely popular in the United States during the postwar years and strongly influenced lighting makers around the world. The sculptural forms and striking geometric details of his vintage floor lamps, chandeliers and other fixtures fit seamlessly into the mid-century modern and Hollywood Regency interiors of the day.

Sciolari formally studied architecture but also pursued filmmaking for a short period. When his father passed away in 1949, Sciolari took the reins at his family's company, Sciolari Lighting, which had been in business in Rome since 1892. The manufacturer expanded considerably under Gaetano’s leadership. For one, pioneering American lighting company Lightolier, in New York City, began to import the Italian brand’s lighting for the U.S. market, and Lightolier’s star designer, Gerald Thurston, was significantly influenced by Gaetano’s work. In the 1970s, Americans looking to add provocative fixtures created by Gaetano Sciolari to their living rooms could find them in Lightolier catalogs.

Sciolari initially crafted lamps and sconces that bore the hallmarks of traditional Italian design. But during the 1950s, when he would become the in-house designer for legendary Milan lighting manufacturer Stilnovo — one of the leaders of Italian postwar design — he created revolutionary fixtures that endured as his best-known work.

Sciolari drew on a range of influences — enthusiasts see the imprint of Art Deco, brutalism and more in his lighting — and designed futuristic Space Age chandeliers, ceiling lamps and pendants for Stilnovo as well as Stilkronen and S.A. Boulanger that defied the conventions of the time. A dizzying array of materials and finishes characterizes the designer’s work, while geometry is pronounced in each sculptural fixture — there are blown opal glass spheres, polished chrome tubes and brass square bulb holders. These combinations were critical to the development of dazzling lighting that proves eye-catching in any space decades later.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Angelo Gaetano Sciolari lighting today.

The venerable Austrian firm J. & L. Lobmeyr is one of the world’s premier glassware makers and purveyors, noted especially for its lighting and tableware designs. Headquartered in Vienna, Lobmeyr has won numerous illustrious commissions in its nearly two centuries in business, including the chandeliers for the Hapsburg monarchy’s Schönbrunn Palace, Lincoln Center — which is home to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City — and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Lobmeyr is still family owned and managed. The company was founded by glass trader Josef Lobmeyr in 1823. It thrived during the long tenure of his son Ludwig, who built a network of manufacturers and artisanal workshops in Bohemia — central Europe’s revered glass-making region, now part of the Czech Republic — and earned imperial patronage. (He also collaborated with Thomas Edison to create the first electric chandelier, in 1883.) His nephew, Stefan Rath, who took over as head of Lobmeyr in 1917, introduced modernist design to the company repertoire, contracting with designers such as Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Otto Prutscher and Michael Powolny to create tableware.

Lobmeyr has never been married to a dominant in-house design type. The firm has produced chandeliers and sconces in styles as various as neo-Baroque, Rococo, neoclassical (or Louis XVI), Art Nouveau, minimalist and “sputnik” mid-century modern. As you will see from the offerings available on these pages, Lobmeyr can bring a sense of grandeur suitable to any décor.

Find vintage J. & L. Lobmeyr lighting and other furnishings on 1stDibs.