Bague Piccola

Expert Opinion: A distinctive form gives a honeycomb quality to this lamp’s ambient light, but it feels tippy. Bague is less successful for reading, since the light shines down to the base of the lamp but fails to push outward.

What We Think: Looking like an upended handbag, Bague cuts a lovely figure that looks simultaneously soft and hard and has a hand-hewn look along the edges. But the light is poorly directed, and the seams and orphan plug on the sides are unsightly

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Tripod Table Lamp

What We Think: This lamp gives directed light to read by while also generating ambient light. The shade and stem are high enough that you don’t get glare in your eyes. My only reservation is that I have to sit pretty close to the lamp itself in order to read.

What We Think: Three bulbs eliminate shadow and hot spots on the page, which is easier on the eyes. The strong tripod shape rendered at a small scale is unexpected and appealing. No Blanche DuBois here, just a good light.

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Miss K

Expert Opinion: This lamp gives directed light to read by while also generating ambient light. The shade and stem are high enough that you don’t get glare in your eyes. My only reservation is that I have to sit pretty close to the lamp itself in order to read.

What We Think: Like Philippe Starck, this little gal does work out of proportion to her size. For better or worse, kids will like its scale, which makes it feel more like a toy.

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Bourgie

Expert Opinion: A lamp reminiscent of Italian Renaissance or baroque styles. In an academic way, someone has molded this old form into a modern medium. Its height and focused light make it a good reading lamp, but its ornateness demands its own special space—I can’t imagine with what kind of décor this would be successful.

What We Think: Laviani’s modern-retro conceit works, especially because the shade refracts while the lamp amplifies nicely. Dusty neoclassicism balances just so with plastic fantasticness.

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Glo Ball T2 Table Lamp

Expert Opinion: This is a prominent lamp. It has a dimmer and distributes an even light over reading material, but it is a big, heavy piece of furniture that doesn’t give you the confidence that it is stable. The unevenness of the globe, on which light is reflected, is attractive, but the gray stalk is anticlimactic and the switch a bit chintzy looking

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Nesso

Expert Opinion: This beauty gives real character to a room; it’s not shy. The biomorphic form is combined with a machine aesthetic, which is intriguing. It gives off a lot of ambient light, but you have to sit close to read by it, and because it’s low, you might bump into it as you stand up.

What We Think: This icon, designed by Giancarlo Mattioli 40 years ago, holds firm on its truffly ground. Nesso gives a warm light to read by, so we don’t mind snuggling our snouts up close to the source.

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Glo-Ball

What We Think: We love the GloBall’s lunar good looks—and the wax and wane of its seven-station dimmer and the strong, even light it sheds—but would hate to have to lift the weighty glass shade to change the bulb. We also agree the base looks tinny.

What We Think: We love the GloBall’s lunar good looks—and the wax and wane of its seven-station dimmer and the strong, even light it sheds—but would hate to have to lift the weighty glass shade to change the bulb. We also agree the base looks tinny.

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