At the Johnson and Courtauld galleries, monochrome earthenware plates have bumps and rough edges, and bands of raw pigment are streaked on wooden tabletops, lamps and boxes.
Now, researchers have come up with an explanation for these odd shapes: Each one is an immense mass of ice that's picking up the dwarf planet's internal heat at its base, rising toward the surface at its center, and then circulating outward from there and downward at its edges, à la huge versions of tabletop "lava lamps" popular in the 1960s.
Taller tabletop oil lamps flickered behind black shades, and more black shades hid the low bulbs of wall sconces.
2. For the college student furnishing a dorm (or for anyone's tabletop), the Rachel lamp, designed by Michael Graves, has a brushed-steel finish and two arms, each taking a 60-watt bulb.
Loren Sosna (right) and Donald W. J. Mulligan, who own the store, also sell tabletop items, pillows, lamps and Juliska blown-glass ware from the Czech Republic (on the shelves, from $18 to $220).
Those who make their way past this initial line of defense can sit down at the long communal table that may or may not be the inspiration for the restaurant's name, and the truly determined may even penetrate the enveloping gloom and reach the dining room itself, where small tabletop candles and tiny lamps shed almost enough light for diners to make out the menu.
Essentially a flat disc that fits in the surface of the lamp base or tabletop, the charger powers up your phone when you place it on top.
The sale's 128 lots include sublime oddities like a tabletop forest of mushroom-shaped lamps from the 1970s (the lot of 10 is expected to fetch $800 to $1,200) and more rarefied treasures like a 1952 pine-and-lacquered-metal bookcase by Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé ($60,000 to $80,000).
Most Americans know Jacobsen through his industrial designs, many of which are still produced by the original manufacturers, including Carl F (door handles), Djob (tables and desks), Fritz Hansen (furniture), Louis Poulsen (wall clocks and lamps), Royal Scandinavia (tabletops), Stelton (stainless-steel cutlery) and Vola (bath fixtures).
But Ms. Calero could not decide on a kitchen lamp or legs for a English walnut tabletop by George Nakashima.
