Rare Paavo Tynell for Taito Oy Model '10103/4' Chandelier in Brass

Paavo Tynell for Taito Oy, chandelier, model ‘10103/4’, brass, perforated brass, Finland, 1948

The Finnish American Trading Corporation played a key role in promoting Finnish design on the American market in the post-war period. To support this effort, Finland House was established and opened its doors in Manhattan, New York, in April 1948. The venue featured a retail space, a Finnish restaurant, and curated showrooms where visitors could purchase designs by Paavo Tynell. For this context, Tynell introduced the Finland House Originals collection and created a range of decorative lamps tailored to American tastes. These lamps quickly became Finland House’s best-selling products.

Each of these designs was crafted with great care and sculptural attention, resulting in refined decorative objects with a distinctly personal and artisanal character. The larger lamps were conceived with the scale of American homes in mind, particularly their spacious interiors and high ceilings. The present lamp was originally purchased at Finland House in the 1950s. Its structure is composed of a constellation of curved arms that intersect and extend past one another, each supporting a shade. The tapered brass shades are delicately perforated, allowing the light to escape in a subtle, atmospheric way. Facing downward, they provide a broad and even distribution of light. The spiral rosettes further enhance the lamp’s poetic and decorative character. Tynell often employed such motifs to subtly reference nature, an approach deeply rooted in Nordic design traditions. The model 10103/4 is a rare design that clearly demonstrates Tynell’s fully matured decorative style of the late 1940s.

Biography
Finnish designer Paavo Tynell (1890-1973) began his career as a blacksmith. After studying to become a master craftsman at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, he founded his own manufacturing company named Taito Oy. During his career, he collaborated with fellow Finnish designers and architects such as Alvar Aalto. Their collaboration proved to be very fruitful and achieved Tynell’s reputation of “the man who illuminated Finland.” Tynell’s international design influence grew thanks to the Finland House located in New York and allowed him to see himself trusted with prestigious orders both for public buildings such as the UN but also for important private collections. Based on existing models, custom versions were ordered by the Finnish upper-class. Tynell's designs are characterized by organic forms and the use of perforated brass in combination with unusual materials for lighting such as straw and cane.