In 1894, the Pairpoint Manufacturing Company of New Bedford, a metal-making firm, merged with the Mt. Washington Glass Company, which had been founded in South Boston about 1837. The resulting Pairpoint Corporation produced many types of electric lamps from 1907, when it received a patent for a new method of manufacturing molded shades, through the 1930s. Most of these lamps had hand-painted shades and cast metal bases that were also made by Pairpoint. This urn lamp has an unusual shape, and not many examples were made. The white enamel decoration on the body shows a woman’s face as well as flowers and garlands. Similar decoration appears on the lid, which is pierced so that the heat from the three bulbs inside can escape. The lamp, which is signed “The Pairpoint Corp’n” on the inside of the lid, must have provided a pleasant glow rather than an abundant amount of light, and thus it was more decorative than useful. The date of the object is uncertain, but the style of the decoration suggests that it was made in the early 1920s. For more information, see Judith Navas Lund, “Pairpoint Lamps from New Bedford, Massachusetts,” The Magazine Antiques, v. 153, no. 4, April 1998, pp. 592–601 (an electric urn lamp similar to the Corning example is shown on page 601, plate XX).