A pair of Danish ceramic table lamps from the Tenera series, made by Royal Copenhagen in the 1960s and decorated to a design by Inge-Lise Koefoed. The underside of each base carries the printed mark of Fog & Morup Copenhagen with the model number E 7169 - the lighting firm that fitted and marketed the lamps.
Tenera was introduced in the late 1950s by Aluminia, the faience works within the Royal Copenhagen group, under art director Nils Thorsson. He brought in a circle of young Scandinavian artists to give the factory a more graphic, colourful look. Koefoed, who trained in Copenhagen in the late 1950s, was one of them, and her Tenera patterns count among the bolder ones: hand-painted geometric panels set against deep cobalt blue.
Here the tall, cylindrical body is divided into rectangular fields filled with circles, columns of small dots and round medallions in blue, white, ochre and grey. A white glazed shoulder and slim neck rise above the decoration and finish in a thin dark rim. Because the painting was done by hand, the two lamps are closely related rather than identical: the motifs fall differently on each one, and one is a slightly darker blue than the other. Metal fittings and a clear acrylic diffuser plate sit on top; the lamps are offered without shades.
The undersides show the Fog & Morup mark, a Royal Copenhagen stamp and painter's initials, which makes the origin easy to confirm. As a matched pair they suit a sideboard, a pair of bedside tables or a wide window sill, and bring a strong note of 1960s Danish colour into a calm interior.
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