Hall lanterns were a popular type of fashionable lighting because they were often the first things a visitor would see upon entering a house. This example was probably meant to hang in a stairwell, since it was designed to be seen from the sides as well as from below. The overall geometric pattern—combined with elements of decorative foliage and silver-stained scenes of a frog, butterfly, bird, and flower—relate this lantern stylistically to the large stained glass screen with marsh landscape in this room. The screen and this lantern date to the period of the British Aesthetic movement in art (one of the sources for the later Arts and Crafts movement) which was strongly influenced by the Symbolists in France.