Eyeball Desk Lamp

Materials: Flat orange painted round iron base. Chromed metal (iron) rod and hinge. Orange painted iron globe, white painted iron reflector inside. Some plastic parts. Metal E27 socket with a porcelain ring.

Height rod: 43 cm / 16.92”

Eyeball: ∅ 14 cm / 5.51”

Base: ∅ 20 cm / 7.87”

Electricity: 1 bulb E27, 1 x 60 watt maximum, 110/220 volt.
Any type of light bulb can be used, not a specific one preferred.

Period: 1970s – Mid-Century Modern.

Designer: To be appraised.

Manufacturer: Massive, Mortsel, Belgium.

Other versions: Tihs Eyeball desk Lamp exists in several colours and models, all made with the same flat base. It also was made whit a chrome globe. This one is from the 1970s. The base was also used for lamps produced in the 1980s.

Also the Czech designer Pavel Grus created some lamps in this style for the manufacturer Kamenicky Senov in the 1960s. Fagerhults produced several lamps with the same base. Also Joe Colombo designed his Spider & Coupe lamp with a flat base for Oluce. Many companies produced lamps with a similar flat base.

Massive

Massive was in origin a bronze foundry and they produced mainly candlesticks, crucifixes and chandeliers in Wilrijk near Antwerp, Belgium. The company was founded in 1926 by Pieter-Jozef De Jaeck. His son Eddy De Jaeck was responsible for the huge expansion of the company in the 1970s. But it were his sons, Piet and Jan De Jaeck who made Massive a true multinational. Thus, they moved production to Eastern Europe and China.

In the 1980s Massive became the leading brand in Europe. In 2002, the brothers left the company to the investment fund CVC Capital Partners, for allegedly more than 250 million euros. Since 2008 the company is owned by Philips and the name of the shops is changed into Light Gallery.

When the takeover by Philips was announced in November 2006 Massive commercialised more than 10.000 lighting products under brand names such as Massive, TRIO and Lirio. The group had about 5.000 employees worldwide and was active in 70 countries.

Massive sold many lamps made by others. Peill + Putzler from Germany and Yamada Shomei from Japan produced lamps for Massive, to name a few. Many other lighting companies did.

These lamps were also sold by Neweba from Switzerland and Prova (BHS) in the UK.

The Neweba brand still exists and was founded in 1945.

BHS

Prova was a house label for British Home Stores (BHS). British Home Stores was a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. The company was founded in 1928. The company went bankrupt in 2016. The Qatari Al Mana Group purchased BHS and formed a new business, BHS International (UK) Limited, based in London. It launched a new website: bhs.com.

VLM Components

The electric parts were produced by VLM Components in the 1980s. VLM Components was founded in 1945 in Buccinasco, a small village near Milan, Italy. VLM is part of the Relco Group, founded in 1967. Today they are the owners of the brands Relco, Leuci, Relco Lighting, VLM and Segno. The company is famous for the switches they produced that were designed by Achille Castiglioni.

The flat base is reminiscent of the Coupe and Spider table lamp Joe Colombo designed for Oluce in 1964.