Lantaarn met vier glazen bollen en een glazen cilinder in het midden, omringd door een kandelaar, het geheel rust op een gedecoreerde bronzen standaard. c. 1878 - 1881

Louis-Emile Durandelle produced this photograph of a lamp with glass globes and a bronze stand, sometime between 1860 and 1910. Such a photograph serves as a kind of advertisement for technological advance and decorative taste. Consider the transformation of Paris under Baron Haussmann during this period: the city was being reshaped around broad boulevards, lined with modern streetlamps, which came to symbolize progress and modernity. Durandelle documented many of these changes, and we might see his photographs, like this one, as playing a part in promoting these visions of urban improvement. The lamp itself, with its ornate bronze stand and multiple light sources, speaks to a culture of luxury and display, reflecting the social stratification of the time. To understand this image better, one might delve into archives documenting the urban planning of Paris, or study catalogues of decorative arts. What is clear is that the meaning of an object like this lamp extends far beyond its practical function, reflecting the values and aspirations of a particular society at a particular moment.