Champagne Standard Lamps
Champagne Standard Lamps | |
---|---|
Artist | Salvador Dalí |
Year | 1938 (1938) |
Dimensions | 160 cm × 40 cm (63 in × 16 in) |
Location | Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
The Champagne Standard Lamps are two pairs of floor lamps designed by Salvador Dalí between 1938 and 1939.
History
The lamps were created by Salvador Dalí for the British Surrealist collector Edward James in the late 1930s.[1] James, a friend and patron of Dalí's from the early 1930s, was the owner of Monkton House, in West Sussex, England, which he had inherited from his father Willie James as part of the wider West Dean estate. The elder James had commissioned Edwin Lutyens to design Monkton in 1902.[2] In the 1930s, Edward James, disliking the "cottagey" style of the house, engaged Christopher Nicholson and Hugh Casson to redesign it, and commissioned Dalí to assist in the design and lead on the decoration.[3] The result has been described as "the only complete Surrealist house ever created in Britain".[4]
On James' death in 1984, Monkton House came into the ownership of the Edward James Foundation[5] which subsequently determined to sell the house and dispose of its contents at auction. A spirited attempt was made to save both for the nation but this was unsuccessful.[6] A five-day auction of the contents, described as "The Edward James Collection", was held by Christie's in June 1986 on the lawn of West Dean College. The auction raised £4,516,544 (equivalent to £16,715,899 in 2023).[7][8][9] The architectural historian Gavin Stamp mourned the loss: "had this ensemble not been broken up, Britain could now boast the finest collection of Surrealist art in the world".[10]
Some years later the Foundation, which had retained some of the pieces from Monkton, decided to sell one of the pairs of Champagne Standard Lamps. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport imposed an export ban in an effort to prevent their being sold abroad[11] and they were ultimately acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, along with one of the Mae West Lips Sofas.[12] The V&A considered James a "key figure in the promotion and international recognition of Surrealism", and described his collection, much of which was once held at Monkton, as "one of the largest and most important in the world".[1]
The lamps, bought for £425,000,[13] are displayed in the V&A's Twentieth Century Gallery, alongside the Mae West Lips Sofa.[12] The other pair of lamps remains in the ownership of the Edward James Foundation.[11]
Description
The Champagne Standard Lamps are made of copper alloy. They stand 1.6 metres (5.2 ft) high. They each comprise ten stacked champagne coupes, some of which function as ashtrays, mounted on papier-mâché trays and surmounted by light fittings.[1] The V&A considers them among "the most important examples of Surrealist lighting in Britain".[14]
References
- ^ a b c "Floor Lamp - 1938". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ "Design for alterations and additions to Monkton House, West Dean". RIBA. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ Hale, Sheila (17 April 1986). "Battle over an improbable house". New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ "Pair of Champagne Standard Lamps" (PDF). Arts Council England. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ Turner, Christopher (April 2001). "The Surreal life of Edward James". Apollo. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ Bailey, Martin (16 February 1986). "Appeal to save house of dreams". The Observer. p. 3. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ "At Auction: James Collection". The Daily Telegraph. 9 June 1986. p. 15. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ "Edward James". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ "Ready for a night of surreal dreams". Antiques Trade Gazette. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ "West Dean Park". DiCamillo. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ a b "Dalí's Champagne Standard Lamps at risk of leaving the UK". GOV.UK. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
- ^ a b "V&A acquires pair of Champagne Standard Lamps designed by Salvador Dalí and Edward James". National Heritage Memorial Fund. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ "Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) and Edward James (1907-1984) - A pair of Champagne standard lamps". Christie's. 15 December 2016. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ "A Surrealist sofa by Salvador Dalí and Edward James". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
- v
- t
- e
- List of works
- Landscape Near Figueras (1910)
- Vilabertran (1913)
- Cabaret Scene (1922)
- Portrait of My Father (1925)
- Young Woman at a Window (1925)
- The Basket of Bread (1926)
- Apparatus and Hand (1927)
- The Lugubrious Game (1929)
- The First Days of Spring (1929)
- The Accommodations of Desire (1929)
- The Great Masturbator (1929)
- The Invisible Man (1929–1932)
- The Persistence of Memory (1931)
- The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table (1934)
- Morphological Echo (1934–1936)
- A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano (1936)
- Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds (1936, 1937)
- Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
- The Burning Giraffe (1937)
- Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
- Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
- Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
- The Enigma of Hitler (1939)
- Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
- The Face of War (1940)
- Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
- Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
- The Seven Lively Arts (1944)
- Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944)
- Basket of Bread (1945)
- The Apotheosis of Homer (1945)
- The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
- The Elephants (1948)
- Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio (1949)
- Leda Atomica (1949)
- The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
- Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
- Galatea of the Spheres (1952)
- The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–1954)
- The Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
- Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)
- Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
- The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
- Living Still Life (1956)
- The Seven Lively Arts (1957)
- The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958–59)
- The Ecumenical Council (1959–60)
- Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid (1963)
- La Gare de Perpignan (1965)
- Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
- The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–1970)
- La Toile Daligram (1972)
- Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalised by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected by Six Real Mirrors (1972–1973)
- Lincoln in Dalivision (1977)
- The Swallow's Tail (1983)
- Lobster Telephone (1936)
- Lobster dress (1937)
- Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
- Champagne Standard Lamps (1938)
- Rainy Taxi (1938)
- A Logician Devil (1951)
- Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937)
- The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942)
- Dali's Mustache (1954) (with Philippe Halsman)
- Être Dieu (1985)
- Un Chien Andalou (1929)
- L'Age d'Or (1930)
- Spellbound (1945, dream sequence)
- Destino (1946, completed 2003)
and costumes
- Mariana Pineda (1927 production)
- Gala Dalí (wife)
- Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation
- Paranoiac-critical method
- Salvador Dalí and dance
- Chupa Chups
- Dalí Atomicus (1948 photograph)
- Salvador Dalí (1966 film)
- The Death of Salvador Dali (2005 film)
- Little Ashes (2008 film)
- Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
- Dalíland (2022 film)
- "Salvador Dalí" (song)
- 2919 Dali (asteroid)
- Dali crater
- Salvador Dalí Desert
- Dalí cross