Poul Henningsen, 4/4 Rare Brass Pendant White Frosted Shades, Pat Appl, ca. 1926

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Poul Henningsen, 4/4 Rare Brass Pendant White Frosted Shades, Pat Appl, ca. 1926

About the Item

Poul Henningsen (1894 Ordrup Denmark - 1967) Extremely Rare 4/4 Pendant White frosted shades Brass socket holder; metal frame, stamped: PAT APPL. Manufactured by Louis Poulsen, Denmark, Circa 1926 All original, early production. Complete with under shade. Flush mounted fixture. This very early, metal frame was the earliest rendition of the later, more malleable wire frame PH designed for his patented, 3 shade lamp system. The smaller, wire frame was a technological "break-thru" for Henningsen thus allowing him to design smaller lamps which can be used in the home - his ultimate goal. Poul Henningsen (aka “PH”) is considered to be the “Father of Modern Lighting” and was one of the leading figures of the cultural life of Denmark between the World Wars. An architect by training and a writer by profession, PH is perhaps best known for his inventive lighting fixtures designed in the 1920s with a mission of continuous perfection in the decades thereafter and over the course of his lifetime. PH abhorred the relatively new and accessible lighting of the early 20th century and he was initially prompted, as the story is told, to perfect the garish electric ambiance emanating from a bare lightbulb which hung in his mother’s kitchen. Beginning in the late 1910s, PH began theorizing about how to best design a light fixture to adequately illuminate a space with the new incandescent lightbulb. According to PH, the light emitted from electrical lightbulbs was imperfect because of its “cold” nature which, though cheaper, was too harsh and quite unpleasant to work and live with. He argued that this type of light could cause negative health and mood issues. PH also argued that the new, bright lightbulb shone uncontrolled in all directions in an inefficient way, rather than being directed exactly where it was needed. As such, PH took on the task of designing light fixtures that would not only shield the harmful glare of bright electrical light and change the color to warmer tones, but also direct the light to be most energy-efficient and economical, all within an aesthetically-pleasing structure. At the 1925 Paris Exhibition, with the help of the manufacturer Louis Poulsen (who continued to produce PH’s designs until his death), PH’s (together with Knud Sørensen) “Paris Lamp” made of six shades in German silver was awarded the fair's gold medal. While this prototype did not completely resolve all of PH’s noted glare issues, it was an earnest start and he subsequently succeeded with its successor the “PH lamp”. This design, made up of three shades originally in copper with painted undersides resolved PH’s idea that a light fixture should efficiently direct or diffuse light, provide a warmer color of light and eliminate the glare. A slightly modified version of the PH lamp using hand-blown opal glass with sand-blasted undersides was then designed in June 1926. This material allowed approximately 12% of the light to diffuse through the glass and created a more versatile use for the lighting fixture, moving its function away from simply a downward facing lamp. Though a loosely-phrased patent was submitted in December 1924, it continued to be revised as PH modified the PH system until the final patent was published in May 1928. This lamp is dated from that period. PH continued to toy with the “PH lamp,” adjusting the lamp shade sizes, materials, and colors as well as experimenting with other designs, all based on the concept of properly distributing and altering light to make it more pleasant and efficient. He was also very interested in the color of light on one’s environment and mood. Amber hand-blown glass - being among the most expensive materials used by PH - best approached his desire to mimic the soft, pleasant glow from candle light.

Creator:
Poul Henningsen (Designer),Louis Poulsen (Manufacturer)
Dimensions:
Height: 15.56 in (39.5 cm)Diameter: 12.8 in (32.5 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Blown Glass,Brass
Place of Origin:
Denmark
Period:
20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1926-1929
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
Seller: DD25651stDibs: LU3653311012511

Shop All Poul Henningsen

Poul Henningsen

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.

Shop All Louis Poulsen

Louis Poulsen

Louis Poulsen is world-renowned as an innovator in modern Danish lighting, but this wasn’t the goal from the start. Founded in 1874 by Ludvig R. Poulsen as a wine importer, the business went through several incarnations before its first pendant lights came to fruition. Through its designs, the company helped establish the foundations of good lighting — function, comfort and ambience — that are now standard in modern furniture design.

In 1924, Danish architect Poul Henningsen partnered with Louis Poulsen & Co., then an electrical supply company, to create what’s now known as the Paris lamp. This design, which incorporated three layers of curved metal disks, created ambience with its indirect light instead of glare. Shown at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris — the exhibition that brought Art Deco design to worldwide attention — the Paris lamp was awarded a gold medal. This led to Poulsen and Henningsen working together on several lighting pieces, including the popular PH pendant light with its concentric shades for the Forum Building in Copenhagen. These high-profile projects helped make Louis Poulsen a go-to purveyor of innovative lighting design.

One of the company’s most well-known lamps is Henningsen’s PH Artichoke lamp (1958), with its 72 copper leaves artfully placed to conceal the light bulb, prevent glare and promote a warm, alluring glow in any room. Another is the steel and die-cast zinc AJ lamp (1960), which Arne Jacobsen designed with an adjustable angled shade for his commission for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. The company has also worked with notables such as Verner Panton and Alfred Homann as well as, more recently, Louise Campbell and Oki Sato.

In 2010, the company was awarded the American Institute of Architects’ Honors in Collaborative Achievement Award; it was the first lighting manufacturer to receive this honor. In 2018, the company was acquired by an investment subsidiary of Investindustrial VI L.P.

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The fixture design is based on the principle of a reflective three-shade system, which directs the majority of the light downwards. The shades are made of hand-blown, opal, three-layer glass, which is glossy on top and sandblasted matte on the underside, giving a soft and uniform light distribution. Poul Henningsen designed the three-shade system during 1925/1926. The first lights using the system were designed for an exhibition in Paris. His work with Louis Poulsen continued until his death in 1967. Throughout his life, PH sought to create glare-free lighting; aiming to direct light where it was most needed, and creating soft shadows while using incandescent bulbs as a light source. The PH 2...

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