Thursday, February 15, 2007
Not too many monarchies survive today. But thank goodness their palaces remain, filled with enormous crystal chandeliers. Anyone building a home on a grand scale might do well to consider the royal approach to lighting. Palatial rooms can look pretty empty without chandeliers.

If you’re in the enviable position of having plenty of interior space to play with, you should know that Schonbek makes crystal chandeliers of regal proportions. In general they must be ordered custom. See our page on custom chandeliers.

We don’t show many monumental crystal chandeliers on this website, because they’re not for everyone. But there are a few styles I especially love.

Renaissance comes in a custom size that’s 60 x 72 inches. There’s so much crystal on this chandelier that it creates an astonishing display of prismatic brilliance. At the same time, this is a seventeenth-century style with an open cage construction. There’s a certain airy quality to the design that can’t be shown in a still photo. So you get grandeur without heaviness. Actually, I would recommend this crystal chandelier in any size.

Empire styling has always been popular among the ruling classes, and Schonbek makes an awe-inspiring Roman Empire in a custom size. This crystal chandelier measures 51 x 67 inches. An empire style chandelier like this one with no external lights has a sculptural impact. At the same time there’s a playfulness about this particular crystal chandelier. I think it’s because of the curly metalwork inspired by the Greco-Roman acanthus leaf, and the plethora of crystal leaves. Roman Empire chandeliers look great from above, below and every other angle, a feature that makes them especially suitable for a foyer.

If you’re occupying a true palace, there is a custom Olde World you should know about. With 120 lights and a body length of 150 inches, it carries magnificence to delightful extremes. The fact that all this crystal is supported by crystal arms makes Olde World an engineering feat as well as an aesthetic marvel.

Another of my favorite colossal crystal chandeliers is Scheherazade. The swirling beaded frame is gorgeous at 52 inches long. And the crystal spear and spheres within the framework get very dramatic when oversized.

If your taste runs to contemporary architecture, there are several crystal chandelier designs for you in the Geometrix® collection.  My choice would be Da Vinci™.   It’s only 25 inches in diameter in the photo I just linked to, but much larger sizes can be had. Just talk to a Geometrix® dealer near you.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

The world is beautiful today, pulsing with a kind of ecstatic energy. We’re having a blizzard. Stores and businesses all over town are closing early. I’m thinking of abandoning my post and going home early, too.

A friend of mine said, “Go home and relax by the fireplace.” She paused. “Do you have a fireplace?”   I said no, but I have plenty of fire. The prismatic fire of crystal chandeliers. This is my kind of fire. No soot. No ashes. No messy piles of kindling. Just the dance of light, the colors of spectrum exploding into bursts of brilliance.

This morning there were many more birds than usual in the back yard. It’s as if they knew how charming they looked, perching on pine boughs in the snow, looking all around and then swooping down on the feeder. I wonder if they noticed the reflections from the crystal chandelier over our kitchen table through the picture window.

All of this adds so much to the sense of being totally entertained just staying home.

So getting back to the blizzard, it’s Valentine’s Day, and since I have everything I want (great husband, nice job, lots of crystal chandeliers), I asked for a simple gift: a fresh-baked cinnamon bun for breakfast.   I got it, too. Now I’m wondering about dinner. People are canceling their Valentine’s Day dinner reservations all over town, so I hear. And probably a lot of restaurants will simply close. I haven’t shopped, the supermarket may close, and so we could be dining on scraps out of the refrigerator. No matter. A tuna fish sandwich is the stuff of romance, when you’re consuming it under a crystal chandelier.

Monday, February 12, 2007

We had company this weekend – a couple, and lots of fun. He likes the same offbeat detective novels I do. She has the delightful quality of admiring crystal chandeliers.

Sophie has admired my chandeliers before, but now she has a birthday coming up. Her husband clearly considers a crystal chandelier an easy way to settle the annual tribute. Knowing that these friends might actually be purchasing a crystal chandelier at last, I got serious about helping them.

It was a golden opportunity to do what I enjoy most; namely, talk about Schonbek chandeliers. Actually, I did more than talk. It was more like a museum tour, leading my friends from one room to the next, pointing out the beauties of this crystal chandelier versus that, mentioning the period when a certain style arose and the characteristics of the style, and finally going through Schonbek catalogs to see different chandeliers in different sizes.

My friends turned out to have very modest desires. The tiny New Orleans crystal chandelier I have in my hallway appealed to them most. New Orleans does have a lot to recommend it. In any size, it’s richly trimmed with crystal.

I realized from this experience that my ideal job would be tour guide for a exhibition of crystal chandelier designs. The sad truth is that when most people look at a crystal chandelier, they don’t see the details. They see a dance of prismatic fire in a sea of crystal. They can’t tell one type of crystal from another. They don’t notice that there’s a frame or how it’s shaped or finished.

Happily, anyone in need of guidance on the subject of crystal chandeliers can simply visit a lighting showroom that’s well filled with Schonbek chandeliers. Schonbek trains the personnel in these showrooms to be fountains of knowledge about crystal. They can give you the kind of tour that I gave my friend Sophie. Ask for the tour twice, if you’re feeling overwhelmed. There’s a lot to absorb.

You might well ask, doesn’t this describe my ideal job? Shouldn’t I just apply for a position at a lighting gallery? No, because I’d have to give tours of other types of lighting too. Who wants to rhapsodize over outdoor lighting? Or even a chandelier or a wall sconce, if it’s bare of crystal?

No, I’ll just have to find fulfillment among friends, when I feel like giving a crystal tour.