Oscar B. Bach

Oscar B. Bach’s floor lamp -- Object of the moment

Parked behind the stanchions in the library next to Katharine’s 1910 Steinway is a floor lamp that typically doesn’t capture anyone’s attention as it might have in earlier days when residents could gather by the piano or read under its illumination. The cast iron was gold plated then, before the finish would have faded over the years. Then, it would have been hard not to be attracted to the masks and scrolls carved into the base, the twisted rope design of the lamp pole, the crown-like ornament below the light and the unicorn finial emerging above the shade.

In fact, it never really caught my eye until I went on a hunt for the pieces in the house designed and created by a German-born metalwork artist, Oscar Bruno Bach. Bach got his start in Berlin where he studied metallic arts as a young man at the Royal Academy and the Imperial Academy of Art at the turn of the 20th century. His work attracted the attention of the elite very quickly. He made an ornate, jewel encrusted Bible cover for Pope Leo XIII that remains in the Vatican’s permanent collection to this day. He also won the grand prize at the World Exposition in Turin, Italy for a bed that was designed for Kaiser Wilhelm II.

He worked as a metalsmith in Germany but also kept a studio in Venice and travelled extensively. Visiting diverse cultures in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, he acquired a fondness for symbols of the zodiac, lush scrolling grapevines, classical masks, mythological symbols--all of which he commonly incorporated into his creations.

In 1911, he moved to New York to join his brother Max so both could start a studio, first in Greenwich Village and then, in 1913, moving to their own shop on West 17th Street (the 1905 Steiner Building where they set up their studio still stands). This is no doubt where our floor lamp was crafted. Bach Studios continued at that location through 1923. The brothers did a thriving business for a New York based clientele, but they also did custom architectural work for wealthy country estates throughout America. Perhaps Katharine learned of him through her catalogs and country living magazines.

There are a few other Bach creations in the Reynolda House that Katharine also acquired. You may spot a couple of “smokers”--standing ashtrays. One is in R.J.’s study and the other on the sun porch. We also have a brass and iron porch bench and fern table currently on the South breakfast porch. Katharine’s daughter, Mary, who married and occupied the house next did a bit of redecorating and had a penchant for painting some of the furnishings white. The fern table was restored with a more original black finish when her daughter, Barbara Babcock Milhouse consulted during the transformation of the house into the museum it is today. (The porch bench remains white, but in 2013 a couple of our interns cleverly used a magnet to determine what parts of the bench were brass and what was iron).

###