This superb figurative lamp is by Anton Chotka, a leading producer of cold-painted bronze goods in Vienna during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
The lamp depicts a mosque. Two figures loiter beneath the mosque’s mihrab—the pointed-arch niche that indicates the direction of Mecca. The mosque is beautifully formed: the wall above the pointed arch is pierced with Islamic-style latticework, for instance, and the domed minaret is topped by a crescent moon. The bronze throughout is intricately cast and finely painted.
The bronze is signed ‘Chotka’ and impressed with a mark reading ‘AUSTRIA’.
