By Athina
“Light and color are certainly the most specific elements in nature. With them, we have serenity, movement, and life,” Max Ingrand once said.
It is around these two elements, light and color, that Max Ingrand built his incredible career as a glassmaker, decorator, and designer.
Deeply connected to the shapes and materials of the past, he succeeded in the difficult task of merging tradition and avant-garde into a single product, creating a true icon: the Fontana table lamp.
The shape is that of the classic bedside lamp, better known as an “abat-jour,” but the similarities end there. Ingrand plays with the form-function dilemma by completely redefining the concept: it is not the lampshade that lights up, but the entire body of the lamp.
The distinction between parts disappears, creating a single source of diffuse illumination.
Made from satin-blown glass with a painted metal frame, Fontana is curvaceous, essential, and undeniably modern.
Its milky-opalescent finish gives it an ethereal quality, an object suspended between the past and the future, which has not yet lost its charm. Ingrand introduces another subtlety into his design: the multi-lighting.
The Fontana is actually produced with both double and triple lighting, meaning one or more parts can be lit, allowing the intensity of the light to be adjusted.
Born with the name “1853,” it was one of the first products created by Ingrand during the ten years (1954-1964) he served as artistic director at FontanaArte. The company was founded in 1931 by Luigi Fontana, a producer of glass sheets for construction, and Gio Ponti (who needs no introduction). FontanaArte was the ideal research ground for Ingrand, where he could showcase his extraordinary craftsmanship and visionary ideas.
The “1853,” welcomed with such enthusiasm that it soon became the symbol of the company, eventually even took its name.
Today, it is one of FontanaArte’s flagship products; it was reissued in a total black version in 2014 for its 60th anniversary, and later in a new, colored version, light gray and amethyst purple, which strengthens the contemporary nature of the design.
The soft and sinuous line, the discreet and minimalist appearance, and at the same time the strongly distinctive character, make this lamp perfect for elegant and refined environments.
When one says “create atmosphere…”.
What is most surprising when observing this lamp is the fact that it was created by the same author of the stained glass windows in the Saint Pierre church in Yvetot, which are of remarkable complexity and chromatic variety.
The Fontana lamp, in its simple monochromatic, monomaterial design, seems light years away from such a work. Yet it is one of the many manifestations of a true glass artist who knew how to dare, innovate, and renew, drawing from centuries-old traditions.
