When Caldwell and von Lossberg formed Edward F. Caldwell and Company they continued to work with such architects as McKim, Mead and White, Carrere and Hastings, Horace Trumbauer, and Cass Gilbert. Operating its own foundry at 38 West Fifteenth Street beginning in 1901, the firm produced work of the highest quality in bronze, iron, silver, brass, and copper. Carved wood and marble were also offered. Electric fixtures made up the bulk of production, but after about 1910 the company also made desk sets, clocks, andirons, and even furniture.

The company's rich and conservative clientele preferred traditional interiors, so Caldwell based his lighting fixtures predominantly on historical styles, often using photographs of objects in European palaces as models, or relying on eighteenth-century pattern books. Caldwell himself made frequent trips to Europe to study the best of French, English, and Italian craftsmanship.

The company could provide either exact copies of antiques or could create new designs based on them. The Caldwell company's work most often stemmed from an architectural commission in which lighting was considered an integral element of the design. With architects, interior decorators, and many subcontractors working together on a project, the different parties depended heavily on the compendiums of drawings and photographs that are now part of the Edward E Caldwell and Company collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City. When the architect requested fixtures of a certain period or character, Caldwell would either provide samples of the company's work or, more likely, photographs of past designs that could be altered to suit the commission. A sketch of a new design would be made, followed by scaled working and presentation drawings, and finally, if needed, blueprints to help in the production of the piece. Any changes requested by architect or client resulted in yet another series of drawings.

Caldwell's work was critical to an interior design scheme because there were few products on the market specifically for electric lighting that would not be obtrusive in a room full of antiques. For example, it would be very rare to find eight matching eighteenth-century wall brackets that might be specified by an architect. Caldwell's fixtures could be made in multiples and designed to correspond exactly to the other decorative elements in the room. An example is the chandelier shown in Plate IV, which perfectly complements the carved strapwork of the stair rail.

Because of the high cost of custom-made fixtures, lighting was almost always a separate contract. As one of the principal contractors for interiors, Caldwell and Company's work could cost tens of thousands of dollars in a single extravagant house. Sometimes the company would design only the fixtures for the public rooms, while the lighting elsewhere was bought from less specialized, and therefore less expensive, manufacturers.

Residential work predominated during the firm's first decade mainly because of the large number of houses built by wealthy financiers around 1900. One of the company's earliest documented commissions was the Frederick W. Vanderbilt house in Hyde Park, New York, designed by McKim, Mead and White and built between 1895 and 1899. It functioned primarily as a country house for entertaining and hunting. The Vanderbilts lived there only a few months a year, but the house was lavishly decorated by the most noted firms in New York City, including A. H. Davenport and Company, Herter Brothers, and Ogden Codman. Caldwell's fixtures, installed in the major rooms, included eight wall brackets depicting satyrs and cornucopias. The same satyr mask appears on several other Caldwell fixtures made around the turn of the century.

In 1902 Caldwell worked with McKim, Mead and White on extensive renovations to the White House in Washington, D.C. It had been partially wired for electricity in 1891, but nearly all the gas lamps were replaced with Caldwell electric fixtures during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Most notable are the chandeliers, bronze floor lamps, and candelabra in the East Room, all replete with classical details. Immediately after they were installed, the chandeliers were reduced in size at the order of Charles McKim, who oversaw the decoration of the state rooms. McKim also ordered changes to the sterling silver chandelier in the State Dining Room, finding it also too large. Many of the Caldwell fixtures from the 1902 renovation remain in the White House, although many have been altered under subsequent administrations, which often hired Caldwell to make the changes.

During a time of rapidly changing notions about machine production in the decorative arts, Caldwell and Company maintained its commitment to handcraftsmanship. The company participated in the first exhibition of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, in 1897 and the American Federation of the Arts exhibition of metalwork and textiles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1930.

The arts and crafts movement provided Caldwell with the opportunity to design several notable objects for George Booth (1864-1949) and his Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Earlier, Caldwell had made lighting fixtures for Booths house of 1907 in Bloomfield Hills, which had been designed by Albert Kahn (1869-1942). Then, in 1915, Booth bought the ornate gates for the Detroit Museum of Art (now the Detroit Institute of Arts). The Caldwell company had made them in 1914 and 1915 to the designs of the architect Thomas Hastings for Henry Clay Frick, who rejected them. A memo in the company's papers notes that "it took nearly a year, and the constant work of half a dozen artisans to complete this screen;" the workmen were mainly of German and Hungarian origin. Edward Caldwell personally supervised the crafting of the gates - one of his last projects before his death in October 1914.

The firm carried on under von Lossberg, although in line with the evolution of fashionable interiors, nearly exact duplicates of antique pieces gave way to more creative interpretations. Many lighting fixtures of this later period were decorated with gilded and enameled foliage, as at Reynolda House in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which was built between 1912 and 1917 for Katharine and R. J. Reynolds. Combining wrought and cast iron with gilding and enamel, the wall brackets and chandelier in the Reception Room in Reynolda House typify the company's later work, which is also in evidence in the Hotel Pennsylvania and the Yale Club in New York City and the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.

After about 1910 von Lossberg began to explore enamel in greater depth, creating objects that today are considered among the company's most distinctive work. While many lighting fixtures and other objects were decorated with colorful enameled details, von Lossberg was most creative with small desk-top objects, many of which directly imitated twelfth-century Limoges enamels that J. P. Morgan Jr. had recently donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. As with its lighting fixtures, the company reinterpreted its models as necessary, for example changing a twelfth-century tabernacle into a stationery box for Walter Rosen of Katonah, New York. Von Lossberg also departed from historical precedent by creating pictorial scenes on such objects as humidors, card boxes, and book covers. A bird cage made for Rosen in 1928 further illustrates the exceptional polychrome effect of enamel coupled with cast bronze and frontispiece.

Some, but far from all, Caldwell lighting fixtures are stamped with a "C" in a diamond. Desktop objects were much more likely to be etched with "Edward F. Caldwell & Co. New York", just as similar goods were marked by Tiffany and Company, Caldwell's competitor. After the incorporation of the firm in 1915, "Inc." was added to the etched mark before "New York." This variation is useful for dating objects.

In the 1920s Caldwell began to make electric fixtures and other objects in the art moderne, or art deco, style. Among its distinguished clients were Radio City Music Hall, the Barclay-Vesey Building, and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, all in New York City, and the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln.

Both Edward Caldwell and his firm were highly respected in the design community and won many honors and awards. Caldwell was made a fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1905, and von Lossberg earned medals from both the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League of New York in the 1920s and 1930s. The company survived the Great Depression by winning contracts for large public buildings, including several government buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as some of the lighting at Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Von Lossberg retired as president of Caldwell and Company in 1938, and was succeeded by Edward T. Caldwell Jr., a grandson of the founder. Under his leadership the company explored fluorescent and indirect lighting and began to sell standardized fixtures. Financial problems caused the firm to close in 1959.

The research for this article was done while I was the Peter Krueger-Christie's Fellow at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City. I am grateful to the staff of the museum for its help and to Margaret B. Caldwell, the great-granddaughter of Edward F. Caldwell, for her insights into the history of the firm.

One source states that Caldwell began his career as a portrait painter and that the architect Stanford White (1853-1906) encouraged him to pursue lighting design ("Seen in New York: Curiosity and Novelty-Seeking in Homemaking," Good Furniture Magazine, vol. [October 1917], pp. 234-235). While this is unsubstantiated, Caldwell did maintain ties with several arts-related organizations. He became a member of the Architectural League of New York in 1882 (Catalogue of the Twenty-First Annual Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York, ed. Donn Barber [Architectural League of New York, New York, 1906], p. 16); and he was elected a fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1905 (Frank Romer, A Most Illuminating 50 Years: The Story of Edwd. F. Caldwell & Co. Inc. [n.p., New York, 1944], p. 24).

Archer and Pancoast Manufacturing Company was founded in 1859 as Archer, Pancoast and Company, changing its name a year later. Ellis L. Archer had worked for Archer, Warner and Company, a Philadelphia gas fixture firm that had a New York City branch, before establishing a partnership with George Pancoast. The firm survived into the twentieth century, providing lighting fixtures for the Breakers and several other mansions in Newport, Rhode Island (New York, vol. 374, p. 200, R.G. Dun and Company Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston; and Romer, A Most Illuminating 50 Years, p. 4).

For the design and marketing of early electric fixtures see Charles Bazerman, The Languages of Edison's Light: Rhetorical Agency in the Material Production of Technology (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998).

By December 31, 1894, Edison Electric Illuminating Company supplied 5,877 customers (Thirty Years of New York, 1882-1912, Being a History of Electrical Development in Manhattan and the Bronx [Press of the New York Edison Company, New York, 1913], p. 245).

Morgan's house at 219 Madison Avenue was built in the 1850s for Isaac N. Phelps. Morgan moved in in 1880 and redecorated in 1881 and 1882. It was one of the first private houses with an electric system (Artistic Houses, vol. 1, part 1 [1883-84], p. 80). Mainly bare bulbs were used in Morgan's house, which, like many private houses, had its own generator to supply reliable power.

Trow's New York City Directory lists von Lossberg as an "artist" in 1890-1891, a "draughtsman" in 1892-1893, and a "designer" in 1893-1894. His obituary was published in the New York Times, August 28, 1942.

Construction of the Boston Public Library began in 1887, and Archer and Pancoast were billed for fixtures through 1895. By 1898 the architects had also contracted Caldwell and Company for fixtures. See McKim, Mead and White bill books, vols. 5, 6 (McKim, Mead and White 1950 collection, New-York Historical Society, New York City).

Report of the Board of General Managers of the Exhibit of the State of New York at the World's Columbian Exposition (Albany, New York, 1894), p. 99.

Although tradition places the date of the establishment of the firm as 1894, McKim, Mead and White was still writing to von Lossberg at Archer and Pancoast as late as December 1894 (vol. 12, Stanford White collection, Avery Architecture and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York City). The formation of the partnership is given as 1895 in von Lossberg's obituary and in Earl E. Whitehorne, "The Un-Written Story of a Great Man," Electrical Merchandising, vol. 29 (January 1923), pp. 3006-3007. I am indebted to Margaret B. Caldwell for the latter source. "Edward F. Caldwell, fixtures, 31 East 17th" was first listed in Trow's New York City Directory for 1896-1897.

The firm moved from Seventeenth Street to the Fifteenth Street location about 1901 (Trow's New York City Directory, 1901-1902).

Desk-top objects included blotters, inkwells, stamp boxes, pen holders, book covers, and card boxes. The company also made humidors, cigarette boxes, ashtrays, and lighters.

Whitehorne, "The Un-Written Story," pp. 3006-3007.

(B. T. Batsford, London, 1901). The Edward F. Caldwell and Company collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum contains many sample books of photographs of European objects used as models. In addition, the firm subscribed to many periodicals, including the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.

The Edward F. Caldwell and Company collection at the museum includes approximately seventy-five thousand photographs (in the library) and ten thousand drawings (in the drawings and prints department) of the firm's work. The Caldwell and Company records in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library in New York City contain many other papers and drawings, including the design record books, which list each design by number, date, and client.

In 1905, for example, Stanford White bought a sanctuary lamp in Europe for his client Payne Whitney's house at 972 Fifth Avenue in New York City. White sent the lamp to Caldwell and requested that it be electrified and that an exact duplicate be made and fitted for electricity.

In 1904 Cass Gilbert (1859-1934), the architect of the Minnesota State Capitol, wanted Caldwell to provide competitive designs and estimates for the extensive lighting work at the capitol. A memorandum from Gilbert's office, summarizing a meeting at the Caldwell factory in New York City, has von Lossberg explaining to the Minnesota State Board of Commissioners "that his concern did not generally enter into competition as they considered their work personal and work which could not be duplicated by any other concern.... Mr. Von Lossberg showed the Board photographs of candelabra that his concern made for different buildings...explaining to them in detail, the construction and artistic work necessary to obtain good results" (memorandum, April 1, 1904, box 8, Minnesota State Capitol correspondence, Cass Gilbert collection, New-York Historical Society).

Drawings for the Vanderbilt house survive in the New-York Historical Society. A McKim, Mead and White elevation of the drawing room, dated February 14, 1898, cites Herter Brothers as the contractor for the room (McKim, Mead and White collection, roll 409-A, drawing no. 177, New-York Historical Society). Herter Brothers' involvement is confirmed by the McKim, Mead and White bill books, vol. 6, pp. 342, 388, 437.

For the renovation of the White House see Renovation of The White House: Message of the President of the United States Transmitting the Report of the Architects (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1903); and William Seale, The President's House: A History (White House Historical Association and National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C., 1986).

The East Room chandeliers were again reduced in size during the administration of Harry S. Truman. The sterling silver fixtures in the State Dining Room were gilded during the administration of John F. Kennedy. See Seale, The President's House, p. 677; and James A. Abbott and Elaine M. Rice, Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1997), p. 82.

See The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston: Exhibition Record, 1897-1927, ed. Karen Evans Ulehla (Boston Public Library, 1981), p. 45; and American Federation of the Arts, Catalogue: Decorative Metalwork and Cotton Textiles (New York, 1930), Nos. 362-364. C. Louise Avery, "The International Exhibition of Decorative Metalwork and Cotton Textiles," Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 25 (December 1930), p. 267, illustrates a large gate by Caldwell and Company, which was on view only at the New York showing of this traveling exhibition.

One remarkable work that Booth commissioned from Caldwell in 1931 was the baptismal font for Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

George G. Booth Papers, folder 10, acc. no. 1981-1 (Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills). I am grateful to Mark Coir, director of the Cranbrook Archives, for providing this information.

Albert Nesle (1904-1996), who worked for Caldwell beginning in 1920, sketched objects from the Metropolitan Museum's collection to be copied by craftsmen at Caldwell and Company (interview with Nesle, September 24, 1996). For the link between Caldwell's enamels and their medieval predecessors, see Barbara Drake Boehm, "Hommage a Limoges: A Note on the Enamels of Caldwell and Company, New York," Bollettino d'Arte, vol. 95, supplement (1997), pp. 173-180.

According to a small plaque that accompanied the book cover, it was "designed by Victor von Lossberg, and made under his direction at Edward F. Caldwell & Co., April 1925." Another version of the portrait of Mrs. Rosen that appears on the cover exists at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the former Rosen estate in Katonah, New York. It was apparently an early, flawed attempt.

Romer, A Most Illuminating 50 Years, p. 24.

In 1931, for example, von Lossberg won the Michael Friedman Medal issued by the Architectural League of New York for his "development of art in industry" (New York Times, April 23, 1931).

JENI L. SANDBERG is a research assistant in the department of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.