"Lanterne Japonaise" Lamp

The Irish-born Gray moved to France in 1907, where she spent the rest of her life working as a designer and architect. Her early work was luxurious, expensive, and one-of-a-kind, principally made for private clients like the couturier Jacques Doucet. Between 1922 and 1930 she ran a shop in Paris called Jean Désert, where she sold her designs; during this period her aesthetic shifted from luxury to a more industrial functionalism that culminated in her spare architectural work of the 1930s. This pair of lanterns is part of a series of hanging lights she produced during the late 1920s; earlier examples were made from lacquered metal, ostrich eggs, or colored glass, while later examples like these incorporated humbler industrial materials like Perspex, painted metal, and the mirrored glass balls that serve as reflectors for concealed lightbulbs.