Use Of Lamp Mats In The 19th Century

A type of paraffin lamp with a duplex burner which was common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Use of lamp mats in the 19th century. Many americans most readily associate hurricane lamps with the civil war of the mid 19th century largely owing to fact that these lamps were extensively used in the lavish movie sets of gone with the wind. The lamps from the 19th century were. In grand houses lamps required a new room for the cleaning of their glass shades. Their relative rarity of course is why genuine pieces of 19th century scrimshaw are considered to be valuable collectibles.

Walnut victorian architectural garden antiques. Despite the significant improvements made to oil lamps in the late 18th century and the increasing use of gas lighting in the late 19th few houses had a level of lighting that we would consider to be adequate until electricity became generally available after the first world war. Its intensity made it useful for spotlighting and for the realistic simulation of effects such as sunlight and moonlight. True to the burgeoning victorian delight in ostentatious ornamentation hurricane lamps of the 1800s could be grandly large wrought in colored and etched glass embellished with gleaming brass scrollwork and other fancy elements.

In the early 19th century lamp designs burned many different fuels including rapeseed oil lard and whale oil rendered from whale blubber and the more expensive spermaceti from the head of sperm whales but most americans could only afford light emitted by animal fat tallow candles. Pieces of scrimshaw or carved whale s teeth would probably be the best remembered use of whale s teeth. 19th century folk art hand carved wooden eagle 35 200 00 25 00 shipping. Original oil lamps that had the wick dripping in the oil reservoir.

Antique primitive blue pantry box aafa. I have seen houses almost filled with the smoke from lamps and the stench of the oil one footman recollected. Limelights placed at the front of the balcony could also be used for general stage illumination providing a more natural light than footlights. However the carved teeth were created to pass the time on whaling voyages and were never a mass production item.

Shop late 19th century table lamps at 1stdibs the premier resource for antique and modern lighting from the world s best dealers. The simple pulley arrangement enabled the lamp to be pulled down low over a table to provide a bright pool of light or raised to illuminate the whole room. One was for the first oil and the second reservoir was used to catch the dripping oil and use it again. It was first employed in a theatre in 1837 and was in wide use by the 1860s.

They had a cover to regulate the light intensity.