Double-Plated Lamp

c. 1865

Boston and Sandwich Glass Company
American, 1825–1888
Sandwich, Massachusetts

Contributing to the 19th-century enthusiasm for brilliant color and elaborate surface decoration, the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company made a variety of overlay lamps in numerous sizes, shapes, and colors. Because of their monumental scale, these kerosene lamps may have been used on the floor near a piano or as banqueting lamps on a table. The labor-intensive method of combining different colored metals in layers and cutting them away to reveal glass beneath was practiced by European glassmakers, particularly from Bohemia, who brought this technology to the United States.

Status: On View, Gallery 173
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Boston and Sandwich Glass Company (Manufacturer)
Title: Double-Plated Lamp
Place: Sandwich (Object made in)
Date: c. 1865
Medium: Cobalt blue, opaque white, and clear glass, gilt bronze, and marble
Dimensions: H.: 97.8 cm (38 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: The Mrs. Maurice H. Mandelbaum Collection
Reference Number: 1994.5
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Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998), 199–200, no. 91.
Brandy S. Culp, “Double–plated Lamp,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, 1 (2004), 14–15 (ill.).

Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York City, by 1994; the Art Institute of Chicago, 1994.

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