Golden snake

Martinelli Luce is celebrating the fiftieth birthday of Serpente lamp covering it with gold, in a limited series of 100 pieces, even more haunting.

Elio Martinelli, Serpente, Martinelli Luce

Following the 2015 presentation of the gilded Pipistrello to celebrate the lamp’s 50 years, and the smaller Minipipistrello, Martinelli Luce celebrated Serpente fiftieth birthday with a limited-edition gold version.

An iconic object – since 1990 a fixture at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art – born of research into an “esprit nouveau” in which the geometry of the form coldness of strict purism and acquiring an emotive impulse softened by sinuous curves.

The curvilinear form of Serpente is higly complex and the definitive version was achieved only after production of numerous prototypes. The difficulties posed by the geometry of the lamp required that new methacrylate molding techniques be developed before the diffuser could be manufactured. The curve of the tubular arm also posed technological challenges and required use of production techniques that were innovative for the time: with its distinctive S-curve, drawnd by the rotation of the arm, the lamp looks much like a snake exploring its environment.