A rare 'Snowflake' ceiling light, model no. 10109, 1950s

Celebrating themes of nature and the seasons, Paavo Tynell’s lighting reveals a poetic sensitivity that remains distinctly personal, yet assuredly Finnish. Whilst certain lights may nimbly invoke the keen urgency of springtime woodland flowers, others anticipate the deepness of oncoming winter by adopting a protective, enclosed personae with only soft pin-holes of light gently diffused. The Snowflake chandeliers can be read as a eulogy to winter, as gently cascading snowfall envelopes the inertia of the winter branches. The first Snowflake chandeliers, with their distinctive lower basin diffusing light both downwards, and ambiently through the reflective brass mesh of the snowflakes, were introduced around 1946, within the interior of the Kestikartano restaurant, Helsinki. By 1948 Tynell had perfected ever-more complex arrangements, all of which were handmade in the Taito workshops. By the late 1940s and into the early 1950s Finnish design was rewarded with international acclaim that was further enhanced by the triumphs at the Milan Triennales of 1951 and 1954. Stimulated by Alvar Aalto’s celebrated Finnish Pavillion for the New York World’s Fair of 1939, the United States proved swiftly responsive to the appeal of Finnish design, and 1948 saw the establishment of Finnish House near Rockefeller Center, New York, conceived as both restaurant and gallery of Finnish design, that until 1956 retailed Tynell’s Finnish-made lighting. The present example, which retains the original American Underwriters Laboratories union label to inside the ceiling rose, can be celebrated as a scarce example produced in Finland, yet delivered to the American market of the 1950s.