Chandelier

Designer Henri Clemens van de Velde (Belgian, 1863 - 1957)

CultureBelgian

Dateca. 1898

MediumBrass

DimensionsOverall: 31 1/4 × 19 1/2 × 22 inches (79.38 × 49.53 × 55.88 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: the Lillian M. Diveley Fund and the Charlotte and Perry Faeth Fund

Object number2008.19.A-D

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts

Terms

DescriptionThe dynamic, three-armed brass chandelier is suspended from a small circular disk, which would be attached to the ceiling. Three clustered thin brass tubes descend about 30 inches, loosely encircled by three thin flattened wire bands. At the lowest point of the chandelier, the three tubes separate to form individual arms, each branch with a twist in the tubing, straightening out to an arm parallel to the floor with light sockets attached perpendicular to the floor. Each bulb, which would have been low wattage, would be bare, without a shade or globe.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

Rather than mimicking historical styles, this chandelier and games table look toward modern, abstracted design. The chandelier’s simple brass tubing and flat wire swirl and turn, moving our eyes around without rest. Henry van de Velde also embraced new technologies, seen in the chandelier’s prominent display of electric lightbulbs. The architect and designer was never interested in recreating realistic floral or animal forms, but rather in simplifying and abstracting nature to expressions of geometry, movement, and line, characteristic of the Belgian Art Nouveau.

Provenance

With Galerie Historismus, Paris by 2008;

Purchased from the Galerie Historismus by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO 2008.

Published References

Thomas Föhl, and Antje Neumann (Hrsg./eds.). Henry Van de Velde Raumkunst Und Kunsthandwerk : Ein Werkverzeichnis in Sechs Bänden = Interior Design and Decorative Arts : A Catalogue Raisonné in Six Volumes. (Weimar: Klassik Stiftung and Seemann, 2009), 1428 (repro.).

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