Lamp with Inkwell
1926-1929

Oscar B. Bach. 511 West 42nd Street, New York. Probably 1926-1929. Bronze, copper, with integral porcelain inkwell and dominos of ivory or celluloid veneer, applied metal tag with script signature Oscar B Bach. Cast bronze shade with mica interior, possibly original.

A unique object, ornate and truly delightful, designed specifically to accommodate a set of dominos and a small porcelain inkwell. Bach has invested enormous effort into his design in order to unite the various components with such precision and visual success, the end result yields an overall illusion that the inkwell’s exterior is decorated with a series of domino designs. The beautifully cast figure of a page, poised perfectly to rotate and remove the inkwell’s cap recalls Bach’s training in German and Italian metalcraft, moreover his ties to the celebrated Gladenbeck Foundry of Berlin. It also represents, by far, the most intricate example of the artist’s small scale sculpture of the 1920s. Perhaps this was made for a special client, his wife Pauline, or Oscar Bach himself. The applied metal tag with script signature was introduced around 1924 and continued to be used as an identifier it into the mid 1930s. This object likely dates from the late 1920s when Oscar Bach was particularly interested in Elizabethan strains of Renaissance Revival ornament, a number of his patents testify to this as do commissions from the period, most notably the W.E. Scripps residence, Lake Orion, Michigan and Christ Church Cranbrook.

Private Collection, Iowa.