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Wrought Iron Pendant for Electric Lighting
Skidmore, Francis Alexander - Enlarge image
Wrought Iron Pendant for Electric Lighting
- Object:
Design
- Place of origin:
Meriden, England (made)
- Date:
1789-1881 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Skidmore, Francis Alexander (the younger), born 1817 - died 1896 (possibly, designer)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pencil and watercolour on paper
- Credit Line:
Purchased with the assistance of the Friends of the National Libraries
- Museum number:
E.382-2006
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level C, case MB2E, shelf SH63, box M80
Design for a pendant electric light fitting in the form of a chandelier with three tear-shaped bulbs. This design is a highly finished presentation drawing to be shown to the client. The design, made in 1879-1881, was for the firm of Francis Skidmore (1817-1896) which by this date had moved to Meriden, a village outside Coventry. By this date, Skidmore, who was a leading Victorian metalworker, employed designers to work for him. Now little known, Skidmore was once famous as the maker of the Albert Memorial (1863-1876) and the Hereford Screen (which was exhibited in London at the International Exhibition of 1862). Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) designed both the memorial and the screen and employed Skidmore to execute them. Skidmore also produced light fittings, of which this design is one, drawn soon after Thomas Edision, American inventor, produced the first practical light bulb in 1879.
