Large hanging six-arm Chandelier

Large hanging six-arm Chandelier

Designer: William Arthur Smith Benson, 1854-1924

Circa 1900

copper and brass with opaque white shades

103 x 43 inches (261.5 x 109 cm)

Benson, who had met William Morris and Edward Burne Jones during his student days at Oxford, set up business as a metalworker in 1880. He expanded his workshops soon after, opened a retail outlet in New Bond Street, as well as wholesale outlets; and produced catalogues to distribute his immensely popular and innovative designs. Benson's work was admired by Samuel (Siegfried) Bing who sold it through his shop, the influential Maison L'Art Nouveau, in Paris. His deigns were widely acclaimed in books and journals, the 1896 Magazine of Art calling them "palpitatingly modern."

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