Lamp

Object Type
Lighting by gas became a commercial proposition from the beginning of the 19th century. Frederick Albert Winsor, an entrepreneur of German origin, first demonstrated gas lighting in London in 1807. However, in the early 19th century gas lighting was expensive and only viable for commercial or municipal purposes. By the 1830s, the price had been reduced sufficiently for it to become applicable for domestic lighting. For the first half of the century, the gas burnt as a single jet, as in this lamp.

Historical Associations
This gas lamp was amongst the 78 objects included in Henry Cole's notorious exhibition, Examples of False Principles of Decoration, held at Marlborough House in 1852. In an appendix to the exhibition catalogue, Cole wrote; 'There has arisen a new species of ornament of the most objectionable kind, which is desirable at once to deprecate on account of its complete departure from just taste and true principles. This may be called the natural or imitative style, and is seen in its worst development in some of the articles of form.' This bracket is dismissed as being 'a direct imitation of nature' and therefore 'possessing unfitness of purpose.' The didactic role of the 'False Principles' display was to discourage the public from purchasing articles deemed undesirable by the Museum's organisers and to guide consumption away from the 'ignorant search after the merely novel'.

People
The reception accorded this exhibition quickly proved that Cole and his assistant, the artist Richard Redgrave had rather misjudged matters. Every article selected for the exhibition, however unprincipled its design might be, was at least commercially very successful. The public were merely amused by the selection but remained unconverted. The manufacturers whose products were criticised were mortified and immediately complained. The exhibition was closed after only two weeks.