Model B010 Grote messing tafellamp, set van 2

Two tall, stately columns of polished brass, these Scandinavian Modern table lamps were made in Sweden in the 1960s by Bergboms as model B010. Each slender brass cylinder rises from a stepped foot to carry a generous drum shade, so the pair stands like two candles set out for an occasion.

Swedish lighting of the 1960s favoured honest materials and plain geometry, and this design says everything with a single tube of metal. There is no ornament, only proportion. The long, narrow column plays against the wide shade, and a thin band at the foot catches the light like a ring on a finger. It belongs to that Scandinavian Modern way of thinking in which a lamp is a clear, useful form, made beautiful by the warmth of its material rather than by decoration.

The brass has a deep, mirror-like shine, softened by the small marks of decades in a home, and it reflects the room around it in long amber streaks. Both lamps now wear new off-white shades in a woven fabric, simple cylinders that echo the stems below. Switched on in the evening, the shades glow evenly and the brass warms beneath them. Set them at either end of a sideboard, or on two bedside tables, and the room settles into a calm, symmetrical rhythm.