A surreal slice of interior design has been recreated at the V&A after a pair of Salvador Dalí lamps were saved for the nation.
The brass lamps, made to look like stacks of champagne coupes, were designed by Dalí and his patron Edward James in the mid-Thirties for James’s home in West Sussex.
The 1.5m-high lamps stood next to another Dalí creation, his Mae West lips sofa, as part of their attempt to create “a complete Surrealist house”.
All three pieces have now been reunited at in the V&A’s 20th-century gallery. Johanna Agerman Ross, a curator at the museum, said: “My favourite little detail about these lamps is that there is also a custom-made ashtray insert in six of the champagne coupes, so it’s almost the ultimate decadent object, sitting around sipping champagne and smoking while disposing of the ashes in your champagne lamp.”
A temporary export ban was put in place when they were sold to a foreign buyer in 2017. The owner then sold them to the V&A after £440,000 was raised to save them.
