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Lot Essay
The chandelier from the dining room of the Arthur Heurtley house in Oak Park, IL, designed in 1902, is a fascinating piece of Frank Lloyd Wright’s interior stained glass.
It was common for the interior stained glass to be different from the exterior in his houses, with cabinet door inserts and lamp shades featuring different shapes, colors, and elements than the windows that looked out upon streets and yards. The windows of the Heurtley house are strictly rectilinear, colored with bands of green opalescent glass and spots of gold leaf. The interior glass displays triangles and trapezoids, seen most prominently in the living room skylight in which two symmetrical, mirror-image trapezoids face one another from different planes in the cathedral ceiling. Playing on the trapezoidal form were two hanging light fixtures, one in the living room and one in the dining room. Both have complex faceted corner detailing, although the living room fixture had six sides and the dining room, four.
The dining room chandelier is the more complex shade, perhaps because Wright did not want a light fixture to compete for attention with the living room skylight. Its pyramidal form echoes the hipped roof of the house.
Made of colonial-shaped plated zinc came (an H-shaped metal strip with a triangular top and bottom that holds the glass together), the linear design with many converging lines from narrow triangles required the utmost skill in craftsmanship. Wright worked with two stained-glass studios in Chicago at the time, Giannini & Hilgart and the Linden Glass Company. Their work is impossible to distinguish from one another, but since Linden was working on the stained glass for the Susan Lawrence Dana house (Springfield, IL, 1902-04) at the same time and also started on those of the Darwin D. Martin complex (1903-05, Buffalo, NY) a year or so later, it is reasonable to assume they may have made this shade as well.
The colors and types of glass used in the shade are similar to those in the living room skylight and to that found in other Wright windows of the period. The outer surface of the warm, honey-toned opalescent glass of the large faces of the lamp is lightly frosted to a velvet smoothness to remove the reflective surface of the glass. Three horizontal cames divide this face, reminding viewers of the line of the prairie of which Wright was so fond. At the top of this face is a rectangle of clear glass inside which is gold leaf, set off by a double ridge of caming, bestowing a subtle bit of sparkle.
The corners of the shade are mind-boggling in their assortment of angles, like a work of origami. Long white opalescent arrows at the center of each corner are framed by clear and dark amber glass. At the bottom point are paired parallelograms of fiery opalescent glass with a vivid iridescence on the exterior surface. Next to it is a tiny triangle of gold-leafed glass. Iridescent glass and gold-leafed glass (in which two pieces of clear glass sandwich a thin leaf of gold) were finding their way into Wright’s early Prairie-period windows at this time. They added color and glister when there was no light penetrating the glass – in the case of a lamp shade, this would be during the daytime when the fixture was not lit.
Further enlivening the fixture were the four wooden beaded chains above and below the original shade. Missing now, the originals remain in the Heurtley house. The four pendants that dangled from the underside were purely decorative and did not light the bulb. They simply dance below the shade, visually making it longer without actually adding material.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives preserves a drawing of a similar shade. Although labeled as being for the Dana house, no corresponding fixture exists there. The drawing represents a four-sided pyramidal fixture with complex corners, and a small rectangular raised cap at the top like the gold-leaf glass at the top of the Heurtley shade. Beaded chains are sketched at the top and hang down from below, as if the chain runs through the shade. The main large panes on the sides are labeled “opal” like the Heurtley shade. The rectangle at the top was to be iridescent, as were the terminal ends of the corners. The Heurtley shade retained the iridescent glass at the bottoms of the corners but put gold leaf at the top. It was typical of Wright’s drawings for stained glass to indicate only the type of glass – opalescent, iridescent – and not the colors.
The design of the shade relates directly to that of the living room skylight. Although Wright rarely identified the natural source of his designs, these glass works give the impression of butterflies. The chandelier suggests the insect alighted on a flower with its wings folded and its antennae waving gently, while the skylight evokes the creatures on the wing. The stained-glass arch above the entrance to the Dana house actually depicts butterflies, so the insects might have been on his mind at the time.
Wright was a master at manipulating light and designed the lighting in his houses to contribute to their interior ambience. Nighttime lighting was critical because that was when the family was at home. In the Frederick C. Robie House (1909, Chicago), for example, he created two types of fixtures to mimic different times of day: sunlight from the sconces and moonlight from the recessed soffits with wood grilles. Some light fixtures became standardized, being used in several different houses. For example, the tall narrow boxes of the Dana house are also found in the first Francis Little house (1902, Peoria, IL), and the hemispherical globes of the Robie house first appeared in the Avery Coonley house (1907, Riverside, IL). Table lamps too were reused from one house to the next, like the parasol-shaped shade on a pedestal base found in both the Dana house and the William R. Heath house (1904, Buffalo).
Chandeliers, however, were unique to each house. Not every house had a chandelier – in fact, they are rather uncommon. Neither the Robie nor the Coonley house had any, for example. In the Heath house, however, the chandeliers are something of an outgrowth of the Heurtley fixture, squashed almost flat and given an upturn at the perimeter like the roofs of a pagoda. The dining room chandeliers of the Dana house are the most complex development of the Heurtley form, with many planes rising from and spreading under the basic pyramidal shape.
– Julie L. Sloan, consultant in stained glass, writes about windows from her home in Lake Placid, New York. She works on stained glass conservation projects as well, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple, and The Riverside Church in New York.
It was common for the interior stained glass to be different from the exterior in his houses, with cabinet door inserts and lamp shades featuring different shapes, colors, and elements than the windows that looked out upon streets and yards. The windows of the Heurtley house are strictly rectilinear, colored with bands of green opalescent glass and spots of gold leaf. The interior glass displays triangles and trapezoids, seen most prominently in the living room skylight in which two symmetrical, mirror-image trapezoids face one another from different planes in the cathedral ceiling. Playing on the trapezoidal form were two hanging light fixtures, one in the living room and one in the dining room. Both have complex faceted corner detailing, although the living room fixture had six sides and the dining room, four.
The dining room chandelier is the more complex shade, perhaps because Wright did not want a light fixture to compete for attention with the living room skylight. Its pyramidal form echoes the hipped roof of the house.
Made of colonial-shaped plated zinc came (an H-shaped metal strip with a triangular top and bottom that holds the glass together), the linear design with many converging lines from narrow triangles required the utmost skill in craftsmanship. Wright worked with two stained-glass studios in Chicago at the time, Giannini & Hilgart and the Linden Glass Company. Their work is impossible to distinguish from one another, but since Linden was working on the stained glass for the Susan Lawrence Dana house (Springfield, IL, 1902-04) at the same time and also started on those of the Darwin D. Martin complex (1903-05, Buffalo, NY) a year or so later, it is reasonable to assume they may have made this shade as well.
The colors and types of glass used in the shade are similar to those in the living room skylight and to that found in other Wright windows of the period. The outer surface of the warm, honey-toned opalescent glass of the large faces of the lamp is lightly frosted to a velvet smoothness to remove the reflective surface of the glass. Three horizontal cames divide this face, reminding viewers of the line of the prairie of which Wright was so fond. At the top of this face is a rectangle of clear glass inside which is gold leaf, set off by a double ridge of caming, bestowing a subtle bit of sparkle.
The corners of the shade are mind-boggling in their assortment of angles, like a work of origami. Long white opalescent arrows at the center of each corner are framed by clear and dark amber glass. At the bottom point are paired parallelograms of fiery opalescent glass with a vivid iridescence on the exterior surface. Next to it is a tiny triangle of gold-leafed glass. Iridescent glass and gold-leafed glass (in which two pieces of clear glass sandwich a thin leaf of gold) were finding their way into Wright’s early Prairie-period windows at this time. They added color and glister when there was no light penetrating the glass – in the case of a lamp shade, this would be during the daytime when the fixture was not lit.
Further enlivening the fixture were the four wooden beaded chains above and below the original shade. Missing now, the originals remain in the Heurtley house. The four pendants that dangled from the underside were purely decorative and did not light the bulb. They simply dance below the shade, visually making it longer without actually adding material.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives preserves a drawing of a similar shade. Although labeled as being for the Dana house, no corresponding fixture exists there. The drawing represents a four-sided pyramidal fixture with complex corners, and a small rectangular raised cap at the top like the gold-leaf glass at the top of the Heurtley shade. Beaded chains are sketched at the top and hang down from below, as if the chain runs through the shade. The main large panes on the sides are labeled “opal” like the Heurtley shade. The rectangle at the top was to be iridescent, as were the terminal ends of the corners. The Heurtley shade retained the iridescent glass at the bottoms of the corners but put gold leaf at the top. It was typical of Wright’s drawings for stained glass to indicate only the type of glass – opalescent, iridescent – and not the colors.
The design of the shade relates directly to that of the living room skylight. Although Wright rarely identified the natural source of his designs, these glass works give the impression of butterflies. The chandelier suggests the insect alighted on a flower with its wings folded and its antennae waving gently, while the skylight evokes the creatures on the wing. The stained-glass arch above the entrance to the Dana house actually depicts butterflies, so the insects might have been on his mind at the time.
Wright was a master at manipulating light and designed the lighting in his houses to contribute to their interior ambience. Nighttime lighting was critical because that was when the family was at home. In the Frederick C. Robie House (1909, Chicago), for example, he created two types of fixtures to mimic different times of day: sunlight from the sconces and moonlight from the recessed soffits with wood grilles. Some light fixtures became standardized, being used in several different houses. For example, the tall narrow boxes of the Dana house are also found in the first Francis Little house (1902, Peoria, IL), and the hemispherical globes of the Robie house first appeared in the Avery Coonley house (1907, Riverside, IL). Table lamps too were reused from one house to the next, like the parasol-shaped shade on a pedestal base found in both the Dana house and the William R. Heath house (1904, Buffalo).
Chandeliers, however, were unique to each house. Not every house had a chandelier – in fact, they are rather uncommon. Neither the Robie nor the Coonley house had any, for example. In the Heath house, however, the chandeliers are something of an outgrowth of the Heurtley fixture, squashed almost flat and given an upturn at the perimeter like the roofs of a pagoda. The dining room chandeliers of the Dana house are the most complex development of the Heurtley form, with many planes rising from and spreading under the basic pyramidal shape.
– Julie L. Sloan, consultant in stained glass, writes about windows from her home in Lake Placid, New York. She works on stained glass conservation projects as well, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple, and The Riverside Church in New York.