Antique American Slag Glass Table Lamp with Green Fretwork Shade

North America, United States. An American table lamp with a paneled shade of slag glass. The shade flares outward from a narrow crown. Tall panels of cream glass, swirled with soft tan streaks, are held in a frame of brass-covered lead. Around the lower edge runs a band of green slag glass set behind pierced fretwork. The grid-like lattice frames a central green panel on each side, and cast scrolls and leafy finials finish the corners. Lit from inside, the green and cream glass glow like marbled stone. The stand is brass-covered iron. A tapering reeded column with ribbon-tied banding rises from a domed, round foot, which is cast with dense relief ornament. A pull-chain socket sits beneath the shade. This combination of overlay metalwork and opalescent slag glass was among the most popular forms of domestic lighting in America in the early twentieth century. "Slag glass" is the trade name for opaque, marbled glass in which two or more colors were swirled together but not fully blended. In lamps of this kind, flat panels were cut from these streaked sheets and set into a metal framework. Pierced overlays were then cast or stamped and laid over the glass. This gave shoppers much of the look of leaded art glass for far less than a mosaic shade would cost. Between about 1900 and 1930, makers in Chicago, New York, and other centers turned out these lamps in large numbers for middle-class parlors and libraries. Item # 161014

Estimate:£376.77

View all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorLighting