Wall Sconces for Cranbrook House Office (Pair)

Edward F. Caldwell & Co. was one of America’s most prominent lighting and furnishing firms in the early twentieth century. They played a leading role in the transition from designing lights for gas, oil, or candle flames to electricity. For their clientele, which included many of the wealthiest individuals and institutions in America, they offered an extensive catalog of thousands of designs for chandeliers, wall sconces, table, and floor lamps, in styles ranging from medieval revival to the cutting edge of Art Deco modernism.

George Booth contracted with Caldwell & Co. in 1908 to supply the vast majority of the lighting fixtures and free-standing lamps for his new home, Cranbrook House – wired for electricity during the building process, in anticipation of access to power not then available in Bloomfield Hills. When Cranbrook House was extended between 1917 and 1920, George Booth returned to Caldwell & Co. for the necessary fixtures. In 1908 and later, the Booths also purchased furniture and decorative art items from the firm’s extensive stock of historical revival furnishings.

This pair of wall sconces by Caldwell & Co. were installed in George Booth’s office at Cranbrook House in 1908. Their design concentrated the light cast by the sconces on the area immediately below them; an ideal design for reading or desk work. The original glass bell shades, pictured in historic photographs, were lost, probably when the office was renovated as a sitting room for Ellen Booth in the mid-1930s. The wall brackets were removed and placed in storage. When the room was restored to its original appearance in the 1990s, the brackets were re-installed with replica shades of frosted plastic.

Mariam Hale
2023-2025 Collections Fellow
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
August 2024