Friday, September 5, 2008
We just added Isabelle to the website. You can also access it from cast chandeliers (refresh the page if you don’t see it).

Isabelle is one of my favorite crystal chandeliers of all time. Schonbek is just now in the process of producing it. Isabelle is debuting on this website and in decorating magazines a little before you can actually see it in lighting showrooms. But we have a list of dealers on the website where Isabelle will be sold. So you can arrange to be alerted as soon as Isabelle arrives at a store near you.

This is a chandelier worth waiting for, which is why we’re doing teaser advertising. The distinctive spiral arms and scrolls look like crystal rope, and are characteristic of eighteenth-century Granja style chandeliers. Creating them is a multi-step, labor-intensive process. They are mouth blown and then molded, stretched, formed and twisted in a complex series of hands-on movements. The classic scrolls at the crown are often referred to as ram’s horn scrolls.

The incredible fanciness of these spiral scrolls and arms is more than matched by the intricacies of the fully cast frame. If I had an Isabelle crystal chandelier, I would hang it low enough (perhaps over a table) so that I could clearly see and enjoy all the ornate floral and foliate patterns incised into the castings. The old masters would have envied the detail Schonbek has achieved here.

Andrew Schonbek is fond of describing the castings as lacy. And lacy they are. It’s especially easy to appreciate the filigree effects in the casting of the bobeches. Castings are often thought of as heavy and ponderous, but here the look is light and airy, in the true rococo spirit.

As to trim, you have several choices of crystal, from trendy STRASS® Swarovski crystal colors to classic clear crystal.

Thursday, September 4, 2008
Does it ever sadden you that most people don’t dress up anymore? A dressy crystal chandelier at home offers some consolation.

No need to give up your casual comfy style of dressing. You can channel all your desires for opulence and elegance into your home.

So the question arises, which Schonbek crystal chandelier styles are the fanciest and most formal?

Olde World is right up there. This chandelier style was conceived in the days when society women were laden with lace and jewels, and balls were an essential part of social life. Olde World is entirely composed of crystal, from its arms, scrolls and central column pieces to its crystal ornamentation.

All-crystal chandeliers came into fashion in the eighteenth century and were a classic by the nineteenth century. Olde World refers more to the nineteenth-century expression of the style, which was very familiar to the Schonbeks. The Schonbek company was founded in 1870.

La Scala also qualified as a delightfully formal crystal chandelier. It’s heavily trimmed with oversized crystal pendants in a variety of traditional cuts. And the cast arms and scrolls add another level of embellishment.

These cast elements show baroque influences. They have a little of the quality of architectural ornamentation. You can also go for a lighter, rococo feeling with a chandelier from the new cast chandelier collection by Schonbek.

Milano is one example from the collection. You can’t get much fancier than Milano. It’s fully cast, every centimeter of the castings etched and incised with highly decorative motifs. The lavish crystal ornamentation is the frosting on the cake.

So go ahead and dress like a teenager on spring break, or an office worker on dress-down Friday. But live like an eighteenth-century aristocrat. Why not have it all?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
There’s something very pleasing about the Labor Day holiday, honoring as it does the work we all do. But this past weekend it struck me that the labors of the Earth might also be remembered in this context. Nature’s production of rock crystal quartz is especially interesting to contemplate.

Consider a La Scala chandelier with rock crystal. This classic cast chandelier displays a plethora of rock crystal gemstones in a variety of shapes, including a massive rock crystal finial sphere. Even the bobeches under the candles are solid rock crystal. So you might focus on any one of these elements to contemplate the wonders of Nature.

Billions of years of geological tumult went into the making of rock crystal. Our planet struggled over eons with wind and wave, tremendous pressures and extraordinary temperatures, to achieve its present relatively stable state. We still have terrible earthquakes and dreadful storms, but they are not in the same category as the widespread cataclysmic events that created rock crystal.

You can see the record of these upheavals in any piece of rock crystal, with its internal tracery of fissures and veins. The density, weight and mysterious coolness of authentic rock crystal are other indications of its history. Arcane chemistry was at work here.

If you can’t find a place in your home for a lavishly ornamented rock crystal chandelier, an alternative might be a rock crystal lamp. Celeste, for example.

Celeste is graced with two rock crystal globes in the body of the lamp and one at the finial point. Reading by the light of this lamp will be a delicious experience. You’ll have a thing of beauty to look at when you need to rest your eyes. Celeste is a truly opulent lamp, with intricate castings and a Dupioni silk shade elaborately trimmed.

In truth, rock crystal honors the labor of both humankind and Nature. You can appreciate the full beauty of rock crystal only after it’s been carefully mined from the Earth and painstakingly cut and polished by hand. In every rock crystal gemstone you behold the labor both of unknown artisans and unknowable Nature.