Pair of ceramic table lamps by Marcello Fantoni, Florence, Italy, circa 1970

A rare pair of monumental lamps in glazed stoneware, the work of the Florentine ceramicist Marcello Fantoni (1915–2011), one of the leading figures of twentieth-century Italian art ceramics, whose pieces are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza.

The hand-shaped ovoid bodies display a poured glaze of remarkable chromatic subtlety: the creamy, frosted white of the summit melts by gradation into a bluish grey, then a deep midnight blue, punctuated by ashen streaks. Flecks of pyrite and textured crystalline effects (characteristic of Fantoni’s explorations of materials) enrich the surface, at once granular and luminous, revealing Fantoni’s mastery in the working of fire.

Each piece is signed by hand to the underside.

The wiring has been entirely renewed by a professional (new socket and cabling). The cylindrical shades in natural ecru fabric were made to measure by a shade-maker from the Decorative Arts sector, in perfect harmony with the tonality of the ceramics.