Frank Lloyd Wright

Thomas A. Heinz, Frank Lloyd Wright: Glass Art, London, 1994, p. 69

Designed in 1902-1903, the Francis W. Little House and its furnishings epitomize Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style of design and architecture. His pioneering approach aimed to establish a modern American architectural vocabulary rooted in the surrounding landscape of the Midwest. In the case of the Little House, low-pitched roofs evoked broad, flat expanses, while walled terraces and projecting eaves accentuated the structure’s strongly horizontal nature. Horizontal planes were also utilized in the furnishings and lighting of the Little House to seamlessly unite the exterior and interior.

The present ceiling light is best summarized as an intricate intersection of cubes. The light hangs from four thin stems of bronze, interspersed at several junctures with cubes. The verticality of the fixture is then interrupted by a horizontal grid of iridized and opalescent glass, which projects as elegantly and weightlessly into space as the overhangs of Wright’s roofs. This horizontal plane of glass is also as visually dynamic as one of Wright’s windows or laylights, featuring a strong geometric pattern of iridescent and opalescent square tiles relieved by rows of clear rectangular tiles. When viewed with reflected light, the shimmering glass creates a mesmerizing kaleidoscopic effect. Finally, the ceiling light ends with a suspended cube of frosted glass, a simple yet powerful geometric motif that casts a warm atmospheric glow and that Wright would use again in his cantilevered lighting designs for the John Storer House. Taken all together, the ceiling light design is at once compact and complex like the house it was created for. Only two of these ceiling lights were ever created for the Little House; the other example is in the collections of the Saint Louis Art Museum, making the present lot the last remaining opportunity for collectors to acquire this rare design.