Ask an electrician to “pat” test them and rewire as needed.
I would be very cautious about trusting a regular domestic electrician to rewire a vintage lamp. I’ve found some - even good ones - to do an appalling job of making good when installing light fittings. Choose carefully.
I believe Christoper Wray are no longer trading, so you can’t ask them to do it. The man himself died some years ago, but I think their London shop closed quite recently.
Another vintage lighting specialist is Fritz Fryer. Their store in Ross-on-Wye is full of vintage fittings and they do refurbishments. Probably not cheap though. They also have a store in London, but I don’t think they deal so much with vintage lights there.
You’re a positive mine of information!
I have quite a few vintage light fittings, most acquired very cheaply from junk shops or eBay. I do happen to have a pair of Wray wall lights for which I needed spares, which is why I was aware of their shop.
I stumbled across Fritz Fryer by chance, but they were very helpful and I bought a pair of glass shades from them for some wall lights.
For no particular reason, here’s an old wall light I bought in a little shop in Kendal.
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I’m by no means an expert on Émile Gallé, but to me that looks to be made in a similar style to his stuff.
This is very useful info.
Thank you.
I know nothing about the origin of this lampshade. The fitting is a converted gas lamp, which was common when houses were first ‘electrified’.
Yes, I could see that from the copper pipe.
Very nice indeed.
Is there some kind of image search function in Google or similar?
I’ve heard that there is but never investigated how it works.
But that may be a way to find out who designed it.
Could be something to do with this?
I’m surprised by the Wiki article considering Christopher Dresser a major name in Art Nouveau glass. He did design some glass pieces, but I’d primarily associate his name with ceramics and household goods, wallpaper, kitchenware and tableware. A great figure in Art Nouveau and in design, but not that major in the glass world.
The V&A has a collection of his work, they usually have a significant number of pieces on display, well worth a look if you’re there, his work has a fantastic elegant simplicity.
(Apologies for the diversion, that triggered my love of glass.)
I guess I could do a ‘reverse image search’. Google, Bing and a few other search engines can do this.
To be honest it looks as if it’s hand painted, in a rather more primitive style than anything made by Lalique, Gallé etc.
Google search finds lamps that look similar with regards to the shape and colours but nothing an exact match. It’s probably unique.
Not quite true, as 230v presents a higher risk of death than 115v, though I’m not sure it can be quantified, while in UK there may also be a greater chance that something else you re touching at the same time of the lamp is earthed, provoding a direct path.
Earthing is obviously a good idea.
However, if the lamp is used in an RCD protected circuit, it will be safe without an earth.
That does assume that the RCD is regularly tested (most people don’t). I also understand that the older types can take longer to trip where there is higher DC offset in your house (i.e. your Naim PS’s hum). Modern RCD’s solve this
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