In 1951 Schottlander created the Mantis series of lamps. He devised a clever system of counterweights combined with a series of strong, and flexible metal bars. Design - Bernard Schottlander. The shade also is unique of its kind. Like an acrobat suspended in mid-air, it is made from aluminium using spinning and chasing techniques that are a part of the metalworker's inventory of skills, but to which he has brought his sculptor's eye to create a helical movement in which the symmetrical and the asymmetrical are in opposition. His lights, with their eternal play between balance and imbalance, reveal some of the secrets of what we mean by solid' and empty'. And like his idol's mobiles they appear to defy the laws of gravity. The essential poetry of the object is an invitation to enter a dream world of the most judiciously balanced elegance.
