Serpentine in shape, beautifully balanced and gleaming like a jewel, the Aspide Lamp by Gianfranco Frattini is both a brilliantly practical piece of industrial design and an irresistibly playful design statement. First developed in 1970, the Aspide is a highly adjustable table lamp that looks like no other light before or since, but which still expresses the material and aesthetic tastes of its time.

The Aspide was designed as a versatile task lamp that can be manually adjusted to create either direct light for work or reading, or turned toward the wall to create a softer, ambient glow; in fact the body of the lamp can be manually rotated 350 degrees in both the neck and the head. Named after the Italian word for 'asp', referencing its sinuous, snake-like form. A coating of gleaming chrome gives Aspide a mirror-like surface that reflects the lamp's own light. This high-shine brilliance imbues the lamp with a feeling of preciousness as well as playfulness, in Frattini's hands, glamor and whimsy can coexist in a single object.

From door handles and jewelry to homes and hotels, Gianfranco Frattini left an indelible mark on modern Italian design over the course of his 50-year career. Experienced at creating interiors for public spaces such as restaurants and nightclubs, he appreciated the importance of modulating light to create nuances within an interior. Forming areas of both functional focus and warm, subtle radiance that contribute to the atmosphere and sense of place. When he died in his beloved Milan in 2004, Frattini left behind one of the richest and most varied legacies of any 20th-century designer, encompassing award-winning furniture, modern icons, and landmark interiors that shaped the taste of the era.