Ingo Maurer for Design M

INGO MAURER (Reichenau, Germany, 1932 – Munich, 2019) for Design M.
"Early Lucellino" table lamp.
Lacquered steel and metal components.
Features a touch-sensitive dimmer mechanism.
In good overall condition, with signs and marks consistent with its age.
Measurements: approx. 20 x 15 x 30 cm.

The Lucellino is one of the most iconic and poetic pieces in the history of 20th-century lighting design, introduced by Ingo Maurer in 1992 and now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The design is one of radical conceptual simplicity: a frosted opal glass bulb, rated at 24 volts—a specification for railway use—produced exclusively for Ingo Maurer GmbH, to which two handcrafted feather wings have been attached, mounted on a slender structure of copper wires (red and black) soldered directly to the socket, which emerge from a circular white plastic base. The result is an object that straddles the line between lamp and sculpture, between functionality and metaphor: the light bulb, a universal symbol of the idea, takes on a life of its own and takes flight. The name is a play on words between the Italian terms “luce” (light) and “uccellino” (little bird). The wings, handmade, are unique to each piece. Ingo Maurer, nicknamed “the poet of light,” is considered one of the most influential and original lighting designers of the 20th century.
Ingo Maurer founded Design M in Munich in 1966 and devoted his career almost exclusively to the study of light. His designs are part of the collection at MoMA in New York, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum dedicated the retrospective “Provoking Magic: Lighting of Ingo Maurer” to him.