THE CHANDELIER
by Joanna Biskupski
This is a story of an Art Deco chandelier, which was, for many years, in the possession of my mother’s friend. It was a large, three-armed, angular creation, made of bronze, crowned on each end with beautiful glass shades. A proud representative of Art Deco style, it featured simple geometric, angular, and symmetric lines. Originally, the chandelier hung in the living room of a high-ceilinged apartment on Bracka Street in Kraków.
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My mother’s friend, Marysia J., was a cosmetologist who kindly offered me, the daughter of her friend, free face massages and facials – gifts I took for granted at the time. I don’t know how long the fixture was in Marysia’s possession, but most likely it had been in her family from the beginning, considering that Art Deco comes from the glamorous 1920s. The chandelier was the object of envy for many who visited Marysia professionally or socially, but my mother was particularly in love with it. Somehow, my mother persuaded her friend to promise, that if she passed away first, chandelier would go to her.
Sadly, Marysia was seriously ill and passed away in 2010, leaving the chandelier to my mother. I don’t recall the exact date mom received the chandelier. By this time, my mother had moved out of her old, beautiful high-ceilinged apartment into a more modest and smaller place. The chandelier’s slender and very long neck had to be shortened to hang properly over the table in the living room, given the much lower ceiling.
The years went by, my mother cherished the chandelier. Her wish was for me to take care of an old fixture after her passing. However, I lived in the USA, and transporting made before a certain date across the border without the approval of the Conservator of Monuments was impossible. I neither had the time to apply for such permission nor any hope that it would be granted to me.
So, I resorted to a less dignified solution: I folded – or, more accurately, smashed – the arms with brute force, unscrewed the glass shades, and pushed the entire magnificent lamp into a suitcase, that, once home in the U.S., my wonderful and highly skilled husband would be able to unfold and restore it to its original beauty – which he did.
The trip went uneventfully. The suitcase was not opened at either border, and the chandelier arrived in two-dimensional condition. I was most likely proud of my ability to handle such a delicate situation. However, I probably don’t have to explain the chagrin with which my husband looked at the smashed, barely recognizable deco junk laying in the suitcase. Nonetheless, after many hours of effort, he was able to restore its splendor.
Now, it hangs proudly in our dining room, a reminder of its journey and the hands that cared for it. I often remind my son that after my departure, this hanging lamp does not belong in dumpster.