Brass Figural Table Lamp of a Stylised Dancer on Lacquered Base, French Work, circa 1970

The Art Déco era produced some of the most celebrated figurative sculpture in the history of the decorative arts, with the dancer — lithe, arrested in movement, caught in an instant of theatrical abandon — among its most enduring motifs. The great sculptors of the 1920s and 1930s, among them Dimitri Chiparus, Ferdinand Preiss, and Marcel Bouraine, elevated the dancer-lamp to the status of a luxury object par excellence, transforming the humble light fitting into a vehicle for virtuoso figure work in bronze, ivory, and cold-painted metal. The present lamp, a confident French work of the 1970s, pays direct homage to that tradition, recasting its sensibility in the idiom of its own decade.

The figure is cast in brass, depicting a stylised female dancer caught mid-pose, her attitude expressive and gestural in the manner of the great figurines of the earlier Art Déco movement. She is mounted on a rectangular base in black lacquered wood, an elegant staging that sets off the warm tonality of the metal and gives the ensemble a graphic clarity appropriate to its period. The whole reaches a height of seventy centimetres — a commanding presence on a console, mantelpiece, or library table.

This is a lamp of considerable decorative distinction. The 1970s witnessed a widespread revival of interest in Art Déco aesthetics among French collectors, decorators, and manufacturers, at a time when the first generation of Art Déco objects was entering the antique market and the revival of their imagery was in full swing. This lamp belongs to that moment of intelligent retrospection, and its formal quality and warm patina make it a desirable piece for the collector of French decorative arts as much as for the decorator seeking a sculptural statement piece.