Dale Chihuly

Commissioned directly from the artist for NoMI Restaurant, Chicago, 2003

This lot is registered with the Dale Chihuly Studio under no. 03.591.CH1

The present lot is one of seven blown glass chandeliers comprising Lumière d’Ambre, an installation commissioned from Dale Chihuly in 2003 for the dining room of the NoMI Restaurant at the Park Hyatt in Chicago, Illinois.

Chihuly is regarded as the pre-eminent American glass artist of today. Drawing from and expanding upon historical methods, he has pushed the boundaries of the field and has created his own language of hand-blown glass. In the early 1990s he began to develop large-scale chandeliers for both public and private spaces, which would become some of his most celebrated artistic achievements. Utilizing a team approach to glass blowing that he witnessed at the Venini factory in Murano, Italy, Chihuly and his studio create elaborate hanging compositions, each responding to the specific architecture and light of its environment. These extravagant groupings of richly colored glass elements come in many shapes and sizes and are typically vertical in orientation. For the Lumière d’Ambre series, he designed the chandeliers with a more horizontal configuration to frame the view of downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan visible through NoMI Restaurant’s expansive windows. The seven chandeliers were created from a magnificent array of variously sized horn, cylindrical, and leaf-shaped glass elements in a combination of clear, gold, and deep ruby red hues. Unique in its configuration and designed as the centerpiece of the group, this chandelier presents a rare opportunity to acquire a masterwork by the renowned glass artist with strong architectural presence.