Book Description

Although Fenton Art Glass was founded in 1905, well after the Victorian era, this family-owned business took much of its artistic inspiration from Victorian forms. Fenton often experimented, throughout its history, with more modernistic forms it thought would appeal to consumer tastes, but it is Fenton's Victorian shapes to which buyers have turned again and again, right up to the 21st century. This book explores one of those forms: the diminutive fairy lamp, used to light dark hallways in big houses before the advent of gaslight and electricity. The book's chapters contain many color photos with full caption descriptions as well as a production table at the end of the book. Readers will learn about the origin and history of the fairy lamp form in Victorian times; Fenton's late 20th century entry into fairy light production; and the many shapes, glass treatments, and glass decorations Fenton used to produce these popular and graceful candle lamps that it called "fairy lights."