Screw (Lamp burner)

Description

Kerosene lamps took countless forms during the second half of the nineteenth century. This monumental cobalt blue lamp has cut designs revealing three layers of glass on the font and baluster shaped lower stem. Often called a banquet or parlor lamp, it is one of the most elaborate designs produced by American manufacturers of the post-Civil War era. The etched and engraved upper shade provided soft, steady glowing illumination for large interior spaces and the weighted marble base gave stability to its soaring height. The glass technique used for the stem and font portions of this lamp often is referred to as overlay. In this case, the object features an inner, hollow core of colorless glass that, while hot, was coated with thin white and then blue glass layers. After slowly cooling in an annealing oven, the glass units were cut and then polished to create patterns extending through the glass layers.