Floor Lamp

The designer of this rare and exotic kerosene lamp, Pierre Emmanuel Guerin, was one of the most important manufacturers of finely wrought metal furniture mounts for the most prestigious cabinetmakers of the nineteenth century: Herter Brothers, Pottier & Stymus, Léon Marcotte, and Kimbel & Cabus. The foundry, still family owned, is on Jane Street in Greenwich Village. By 1880, in an attempt to diversify his business, Guerin had begun to design and manufacture "artistic bronzes" and brass goods such as vases, clock cases, and lamps. The shaft of the lamp is a highly imaginative, menacing, eagle-like bird with an out-of-scale claw as the base. The sophistIcated design evoking ancient mythology is characteristIc of fantastical objects made in the Aesthetic Movement style of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The jewel-like colored shade and the highly polished brass of the lamp would have had a striking effect when illuminated in a densely furnished and patterned parlor of the period.