Lamp in Coiled Brushed Steel Sheet with a White Opaline, Modernist, French Work, in the Style of François Monnet, circa 1970

This lamp is built from a sheet of brushed steel bent into a large comma, whose coiling forms both the screen and the setting for a diffusing sphere of white opaline. The base, a folded sheet with curved drops, extends the gesture and seats the composition; when lit, the opal ball radiates a soft light that the steel wall reflects in a halo.

This economy of means — a folded sheet, a sphere — is characteristic of French modernist design of the 1970s, which explored brushed steel sheet in the spirit of the sculptural research of the period, between minimalism and lyricism of gesture.

Condition report: Good general condition. Uniform brushed steel with fine marks from use, sound opaline with no apparent chip. Electricity checked by an electrician. A sculptural ambient lamp for a console, a bookcase or a contemporary bedside.