anecdotes

[all things chandeliers]

allusions, inspirations, references:

lighting

some contemporary chandeliers in frankfurt; some projects with LEDs

chandelier innovation

With “Scheherazade” Schonbek developed an entirely new way to construct a beaded chandelier (patent pending). Each strand of beads is encased within four slender strands of metalwork, so that the beaded arms and scrolls appear to float.

Robert Frost

I had a vision of them put together
Not like a man, but like a chandelier.

Jane O’Reilly

I used to join the murmurings about “Where are the qualified women?” As we murmured, we would all gaze about the room, up toward the chandelier, into the corner behind the potted palm, under the napkin, hoping perhaps that qualified women would pop out like leprechauns.

Sam Moore

Radio tried everything, and it all worked. It invented a new kind of singer whose voice wasn’t even loud enough to carry across a hotel bedroom, and Americans, as it turned out, would rather hear these “crooners” than any big-bellied tenor who ever shook an opera house chandelier.

love in a cottage, willis

But give me a sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier— 10
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody very near;
Or a seat on a silken sofa,
With a glass of pure old wine,
And mamma too blind to discover 15
The small white hand in mine.

the story of the white blackbird, de musset

Chaffinches, linnets, and robin redbreasts had grouped themselves lightly on some pruned branches like crystals on a chandelier.

vanity fair, thackeray

“O heavenly!” said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet straight to the chandelier.

hop-frog, poe

The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take place, was a circular room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a single window at top. At night (the season for which the apartment was especially designed) it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier, depending by a chain from the centre of the sky-light, and lowered, or elevated, by means of a counter-balance as usual; but (in order not to look unsightly) this latter passed outside the cupola and over the roof...

At his suggestion it was that, on this occasion, the chandelier was removed. Its waxen drippings (which, in weather so warm, it was quite impossible to prevent) would have been seriously detrimental to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account of the crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep from out its centre; that is to say, from under the chandelier...

While the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive only to his own safety (for, in fact, there was much real danger from the pressure of the excited crowd), the chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung, and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of the floor...

Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and, of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and face to face.

fundevogel, grimm

"Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave you." Fundevogel said: "Neither now; nor ever." Said Lina: "Then do you become a church, and I'll be the chandelier in it."

the little white bird, barrie

There were many oil-paintings on the walls, mostly without frames, and I must mention the chandelier, which was obviously of fabulous worth, for she had encased it in a holland bag.

I looked around me despairingly, and my eye alighted on the holland covering. "There is a fine chandelier in that holland bag," I said coaxingly.

She sniffed and was raising an untender hand, when I checked her. "Forbear, ma'am," I cried with authority, "I prefer to believe in that bag. How much to be pitied, ma'am, are those who have lost faith in everything." I think all the pretty things that the little nursery governess had made out of nothing squeezed my hand for letting the chandelier off.

the master and margarita, bulgakov

Then, he began crawling up the wall, ripping the wallpaper with his claws, and in two seconds he was high overhead, sitting on the metal curtain rod. In a flash, hands grabbed at the curtain and tore it down together
with the rod, letting the sunlight burst into the darkened room. But neither the fraudulently revived cat nor the primus fell down. The cat, still holding on to his primus, managed to swing through the air and land on the chandelier that was hanging in the center of the room."

The cat escapes with his primus stove and more havoc ensues.