Marriage or mate?

This lamp had almost run its auction before I looked closely at it. One thing that caught my eye is that on the shade, in the center of each diamond, is a dot. However, the base doesn’t have the same decoration. I’m sure the air trap design was planed that way on the shade, as that would take quite a bit of extra work to get that to occur. The artisan that did the work did miss several diamonds when placing the dot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling his work shoddy, because I couldn’t even come close to doing the same. But I was wondering, since the colors are so well matched, do you think this is a marriage or a mate?

The lamp is located at:


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I am as uncertain as you are. The colors match very well but the "dot" in the air trap raises doubts that it is original to the base. Another interesting feature that it does not have any air notches in the shade. I would have thought that it would have.

I am not convinced the "dots" are intentional. I could be that the air traps simply "collapsed" in the process. That could explain why some diamonds do not have a dot and the dots are so uneven in size, shape, and location.

Stu Horn (Rose Bowl Collectors Group) has put together a great website illustarting MOP air trap designs at:


Jim.