Pair of « Comb » Ceiling Lights n°53
This pair of “comb” ceiling lights was made of aluminum and ebonite. Their basic geometrical shapes (refering to modern mathematics) overlapping one with another confers to the light pendant an “industrial” and modern aesthetics, reinforced by “idea of cropping combs bracket lamp that comes from the cutting band saw use”. The artist, by strips saw, has allowed the light to reinforce the works general aesthetics.
Circa 1929.
Dimensions :
Height: 32 in. Width: 12 ½ in. Depth: 9 in.
Provenance :
Private collection, Paris
Galerie Doria, Paris
Collection Château de Gourdon
Commentaire :
The first sketch of those pieces was sent by Jacques Le Chevallier to René Koechlin beginning of May 1929. It reused the idea of cropping combs bracket lamp that comes from the cutting band saw use. Koechlin started to work on the prototype, after a few adjustments on details, by the end of June 1929. The model was reproduced in the periodical L’Art vivant, n°143, in December 1930, in an article by Ernest Tisserand about “L’esthétique du luminaire” (the aesthetics of lighting, p.939:
“ On the left, subtle artists demand from metal and mecanical shapes lamps, bracket lamps and light pendants in which we don’t know whether it is strangeness or logic that prevails, but who definitely have character (Le Chevallier and Koechlin)”… “ A man of taste puts on a table a lamp by Perzel or Le Chevallier. Failing that, he lights the room with an architect lamp, with swivel arms ”.
Bibliography :
L’Art vivant, n°143, décembre 1930, ill. p.939 from an article by Ernest Tisserand on « L’Esthétique du luminaire »
Jacques Le Chevallier, 1896-1987, La lumière moderne, Cat. Exp., Paris, Editions Gourcuff et Gradenigo, 2007, p. 110-113
