Eclisse - Artemide

Eclisse is a table lamp designed by Vico Magistretti in 1965 for Artemide in production since 1967, one of the symbolic products of Italian design.

It is part of numerous museum collections including the permanent one of the Triennale Design Museum in Milan and the MoMA in New York.

It received the Compasso d'Oro Award in 1967 and is still produced and marketed by Artemide.

Eclisse is a table lamp, with direct or diffused light. The name recalls the astronomical phenomenon that identifies the formal and technical characteristics of the lamp, composed of three hemispheres, a base one, a fixed external one and an internal mobile which, by rotating, allows to obscure the light source.

This feature is not only conceptual but also functional, the lamp can in fact be used as a source of direct or diffused light, depending on the use made of it.

The lamp immediately receives international attention, the interest is given to it both for its formal originality, for its aesthetic harmony and above all for its innovation in the light field.

The Eclisse lamp is still in production, but the latest models are modified by inserting a black disc to adjust the light beam avoiding touching directly the superheated inner shell.

Vico Magistretti recounted that the project idea was born on the "Metropolitana di Milano", thinking of the lantern of Jean Valjean (described in Victor Hugo's The Miserable Novel) and which was fixed in a sketch on the travel ticket.

Material: painted metal

Permanent collections of museums where Eclisse is present
Studio Vico Magistretti Studio Foundation, Milan
Triennale Design Museum, Milan
MoMA, New York
Gallery of design and furniture, Cantù
Metropolitan museum of art, New York
Denver Museum of Art, Denver
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Musée des arts decoratifs, Montréal
National Gallery of Modern Art (GNAM), Rome
Department of Design, Civic Gallery of Modern Art. Gallarate. Varese