The following post is brought to you by Lauritz.com. Our partners are hand-picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.
Poul Henningsen (1894-1967) was a Danish designer who is world renown for his beautiful and functional PH lamps. He was the illegitimate child of the famous Danish writer and feminist activist Agnes Henningsen.
All of Henningsen’s lamps are designed to break and filter the light in a pleasing way, with his most famous designs being the Artichoke and the PH5.
A few crazy Henningsen facts:
- It’s said that the famous three-screen light was designed because his mother complained that she looked so wrinkled in a harsh electric light.
- After openly criticizing the Nazis in the second world war, he was forced to flee to Sweden in a rowing boat.
- Henningsen left us with not only his wonderful and timeless designs, but also his body, which he dedicated to science and can still be viewed to this day by the medical students in Copenhagens Panum Institute.
At the turn of the last century, the electric light bulb was a very new invention so it’s easy to understand people’s difficulty in adapting from a warmer glow of a kerosene or gas lamp to this new, harsh electric light.
This lamp is very similar to the original three-screen lamp that he designed for his mother.
It seems obvious to us today, but imagine only a harsh bare bulb light, and then experiencing a softer ambient light from these lamps.
This pre-1940s example shows the deep patina and coloring on its surfaces so valued by collectors.
Artichoke detail and a modern day Artichoke in copper finish
The complex design and structure of the 1950s Artichoke lamp, like the one pictured above, ensures light breaks and filters evenly in a room.
The original pre-war PH Lamps are extremely rare and valuable, but many great finds and bargains can still be found at reasonable prices from the ’30s to contemporary.
An original “Number 7” from the 1930s sold at auction for $2,800
PH4/4 Pendant Lamp circa 1928-9, sold for $2,400
Click here to find original PH Lamp bargains on sale now at Lauritz.com.
Gerry Power on 02.20.2012 at 13:27 PM
Anther interesting fact; many of the metal shade lamps have internal parts painted colors to subtly warm of cool (or both!) the color of the light. My Poulsen PH4 pendant over my dining table has a bottom lamp shield finished in orange which warms up the color of the lower tiers. I’ve seen a few pendants with upper parts painted pale lavender as well.
Kelvin on 02.29.2012 at 14:42 PM
I had a PH4 lamp given to me by a family friend who owned a junk barn & had quite a few in various states of junk. It was eventually left in a friend’s attic for temporary storage, but vanished by the time I came back for it. Which makes me unbelievably sad – the light coming out of it is lovely, and it’s an expensive thing to replace.
Since mine was damaged but in good shape (the paint was chipped), I’d painted the top black, the inside bright white & the inside of the smallest section metallic gold. Which might sound tacky, but it threw the most appealing light over a dining table.