Oil lamp

Oil lamps were invented by Ignacy Łukasiewicz, a Polish pharmacist, chemist, inventor and entrepreneur who was the first to distil crude oil. Łukasiewicz developed his first lamp with the help of a tinsmith, Adam Bratkowski; together, they constructed a rather massive lamp, where the wick, immersed in a tank, was led out through whole into a metal tube. By capillary forces, the wick provided a supply of oil and its vapour which burned. The first lamp had the power of as little as 10 to 15 candles, but as the gradual progress led to the construction of the lamps we know today. The new, improved lamps were used to illuminate the hospital in Lviv, where the first night operation with their use was performed on 31 July 1853. The item in question is a brass, standing, oil lamp from the castle collection, made by the Viennese company R. Ditmar, dating from the second half of the 19th century. The lamp container in the form of a flattened sphere, decorated on three sides with female hermas passing into volute legs in the shape of a bird’s claw. The feet are attached to a plate-shaped base, decorated with a semi-plastic geometric and floral ornament. Inside the container, an oil reservoir made of brass sheet, with a knob for the wick, which bears the inscription R. Ditmar, Wien. The domed lampshade made of two-layered opaque glass in white and green is covered with an openwork brass cover (a kind of second diffuser) with floral threads, the top narrows into a metal ring and finishes with a crown of stylised leaves. A glass chimney protrudes above the lampshade; it bears the inscription “w Zawierciu ROYAL 15, Tow. Akc. Fabryki szkła. Wien”. Karl Rudolf Ditmar was born in 1818 in Prenzlau near Stettin (Szczecin). Between 1839 and 1840 he had his first contacts with primitive oil lamps. The path which led him to becoming one of the leading manufacturers of oil lamps began with a company trading in lamps, cups and painted sheet metal through a repair shop for light fittings. In the 1850s the Ditmar brothers developed the “Viennese Moderator Lamp”. By the 1860s, the company already had 400 employees. In 1879, a factory was established in Warsaw and in 1890 another one in Milan. The lamp is exhibited in the Turkish Apartment on the ground floor of the castle.