Edgar BRANDT French Art Deco Wrought-iron Desk Lamp, Ca. 1910

FRENCH ART DECO WROUGHT-IRON DESK LAMP

by Edgar BRANDT

France, ca.1910

'LES PINS'

the support decorated with pine cone and needles, shade adjustable

This lamp is rare. A smaller version was put up for sale by Christie's in April 2006 (see photo), insufficiently described in the sales catalog

Nothing else to our knowledge

It is a variation of the Barbedienne banister (1908) of the same decor and simulating a peacock tail

We condensed  above the passage devoted to this banister in the excellent book by Joan Kahr dedicated to Edgar Brandt

You will find interesting elements on the decor and manufacturing

Height: 15.35"(39cm), Width: 12.2"(31cm), Depth: 10.4"(26.5cm)

Condition : Excellent !

Delivered wired for your country (US, UK, EU, Australia, etc)

contact : Laetitia@artdecoceramicglasslight.com

SOLD

The most important Edgar Brandt innovation in its field was the invention of the oxyacetylenic welding torch. Brandt quickly understood the possibilities inherent in the use of the torch. In 1908, an influential client, Gustave Leblanc-Barbedienne (*see below), owner of the famous Barbedienne foundry, asks Brandt to forge the main banister of the staircase of his mansion 63, rue de Lancry. Shaping a profusion of pine cones and needles that look like the splendid tail of a peacock, Brandt has proven what could be accomplished with the torch.

Also known as the autogenic pistol, the oxyacetylenic blowtorch is at the origin of the ferronous revolution during the first two decades of the 20th century.

A premonitory Edgar Brandt has mastered the autogenic welding gun and was one of his first champions. The Barbedienne banister, with all its individual components, would have been an arduous technical challenge for a blacksmith using forge welding, a process consisting in heating two metals in fire and then assembling them by compression. The pine cones and the needles were first made, then applied to the banister, building from the ground. The use of the torch required a particular skill and Brandt was the pioneer of its use very early. Indeed, it was not until 1918 that the Barbouze School was open for the sole purpose of teaching this technique.

The ironworker will be in love with the pine branch throughout his career, but the torch allows him to create, in the Barbedian banister, one of his greatest achievements on the theme. Most likely, the large pine cones were made by forging individual petals and then welding them with layers in layers. The small cones, which have less definition, were made from iron sheets formed in the shape of a cone then hot welded to fix the open side. The ridges were applied, united with gas, then chopped in place and hammered to texture the closely closed cones. A careful examination of these latter cones reveals slight variations in the texture of ridges and closings of the summits and funds.

The pine needles would have been made by hammering a round bar in a smaller mold, thus creating the individual shape and the grooves at the same time. Then they were welded to the gas on cones. The brass used for the handrail has added to the colorful richness of the work. The sumptuousness of the banister is visible today on a black and white photograph (see above), but the effect had to be dazzling in person because the light played on the contrasting iron and brass. With the Barbedienne banister, Brandt achieves the possibilities offered by the autogenic welding torch, because it allows you to climb a complex tour of force like this with a big time saving.

* Ferdinand Barbedienne (1810-1892) is intended for living sculptors and offers them - while leaving them the property of their works - to execute at his expense, reductions he will sell by ensuring them a fee on the net product . The first publishing contract is signed with Rude on March 22, 1843. Will follow many sculptors: David d'Angers, Bare, Barrias, etc. With which he concludes contracts for one or more works or for their complete production, either for life or for a limited period. In a quarter of a century, he thus distributed to the artists whose works he reproduced, a sum of almost a million and a half of francs. He publishes commercial catalogs where more than 1,200 pieces (copies of old bronzes or contemporary prints) are presented in several dimensions of 10 to 95 cm, without forgetting the pendulum, the lights, the furniture bronzes, the chimneys, etc.

Thus it was loaded from 1850 to 1854 all the furnishings of the salons of the town hall of Paris. It is from the Barbedian foundry that the statues of famous men also come out: Henri IV on the Pont-Neuf, Chateaubriand, Hugo, Lamartine, Balzac, Mozart Child, of national heroes: Jeanne d'Arc and the Marshal Ney, but Also genre scenes: a young fisherman sitting on the shore, a peasant who carries her latestborn, a famous dancer.

The production, some time interrupted by the war of 1870, during which he put his foundry at the service of the fatherland by providing 70 canons for national defense, resumes once the peace returned. He exports his manufacturing abroad where he installs offices.

When he died, on March 21, 1892, more than 600 workers were acting on rue de Lancry. Considered as "a national glory having carried the brilliance of our industry very high in all international competitions (25 medals with major exhibitions from 1851 to 1889) and having pushed the sense of translation of the Beau", he is buried in Père-Lachaise cemetery with a quasi-national funeral.

 Gustave Leblanc, son nephew and partner, succeeds him under the name of Leblanc-Barbedienne. He signed a 20-year exclusive publishing contract with Rodin for Eternal Spring and The Kiss. In 1895, he also cast the first round of the Bourgeois de Calais. The company is still as successful as ever. It has agencies in the United States and Great Britain and opens a branch in Berlin in 1913. After the war, during which the workshops were partly destroyed by the big Bertha, the house works in particular for commemorative monuments and produces countless works.