Astral lamp
An Argand lamp with a ring-shaped oil reservoir that cast no shadow downwards.
The lamp was patented around 1809 and was popular in middle-class homes and in America until the 1840s. It was an early attempt to design a lamp around the path of its light. Examples are in the Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian.
Materials: Brass, often gilded or lacquered, glass shade and prisms
Manufacture: The reservoir was made as a flat ring round the burner so it did not block the light; the shade was cut or etched.
The ring-shaped reservoir high up, beneath the shade.
The light falls freely down on the table – no reservoir in the way.