Table lamp Gustav Gurschner ca. 1902

Among the objects Gustav Gurschner designed for study rooms were various table lamps. Shortly after his debut at the First Exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1898, companies like E. Bakalowits & Söhne in Vienna began commissioning Gurschner to create artistically designed lighting objects, often paired with matching lampshades from renowned glassworks.
In 1897, Gurschner spent time in Paris, where he was exposed to French Art Nouveau. The flowing, stylized, floral-vegetal ornamentation became a defining feature of his artistic work, as exemplified in this table lamp. Like plant stems, the two bronze supports rise from the lamp’s base in an organic, curving line, branching out at their ends into delicate ornamental tendrils, upon which the lampshade rests.
The lampshade, made by Wilhelm Kralik & Sohn, crafted from greenish, subtly iridescent glass, is embedded with rolled-in crumbs of opalescent white, copper orange, and violet, and completes the lamp, creating a softly atmospheric light.