Art Deco lamps festooned with female nudes

The woman in black lacquer with her hands folded behind her head and her bare chest poked out was the first lamp I saw on the table. It was among a thicket of metal table lamps and art-glass shades that looked as if you needed a machete to get through them.

The auction house had squeezed all of them on the table, a virtual garden of Art Deco pieces that – given the number and commonality of them – obviously had been someone’s collection. All of the women were stretched into sexual poses, two were upside down and two were holding large structures over their heads.

I’d seen nude female figural lamps before at auction, but this auction seemed to have more of them. These were more impressive in style than their numbers were large.

When I ventured to the other side of the room, I found several others on a glass shelf. These were the best among the group and were waiting to be sold during the more-expensive Decorative Arts sale.

These were part of a collection, I asked an auctioneer in a statement more than a question. They were, she said, noting the size of the collection.

The other table not only held lamps of women but other pieces that were figural (items made in the shape of people or animals). One was decorated with a man in chrome, one with a trio of elephants in green, several with clowns and harlequins, and one with a shiny black gazelle. Gazelles are said to be the most common.

These types of figural lady lamps found their footing during the Art Deco period of the 1920s and 1930s, inspired by the dancers of the fabled Moulin Rouge dance hall in Paris, according to Collectors Weekly. The flapper image and changing style of the day were also influential.

The Art Deco period itself was characterized by a worldliness of spirit and a casting off of the restraints of Victorianism. The first world war was over, and folks without a care in the world were ready to live it up. The art reflected this new attitude, and it came in the mass-production of works that more people could afford.

The designs of the Art Deco period focused on geometric shapes rather than ornamentation. The figural lamps had smooth simple lines with very little adornment. The female body was seen as something to celebrate, and the lamp figures were sculpted in sensuous positions near opaque globes on bases made of materials from chrome to bronze.

The singer and actress Josephine Baker, an African American who found her freedom in France, may have been the model for some of them, Collectors Weekly surmised. She was among the women who were said to represent this form.

One website noted that sculptor Max Le Verrier modeled the legs of the woman in his “Clarte” figural lamp after an African American dancer in Baker’s show. He used the head of one model and the upper torso of another to fill out the woman. French sculptors created more than just figural lamps; they also sculpted lone female nudes without glass shades.

There were several makers in this country, the most notable was Frankart of New York. The company, founded in 1922, produced a plethora of lamps, candlesticks, ashtrays, flower holders, inkwells, bookends, smoker stands and more.

As the Depression set in, Art Deco and all the fun stepped out. The lamps, though, and what they represented are still very collectible.

That was evident in the number of people who crowded around the auction table as the auctioneer started picking up lamps and shades for bids. I did not bid because I was not familiar enough with them to step in. But if you’re interested in these lamps, here are some guidelines. Some female figural lamps go for hundreds to thousands of dollars. The trick is to know which ones.

One bidder took most of the items. Here are some of the lamps and the prices they pulled in: