'Eclisse' lamps (pair)

Model: Eclisse / Designer: Vico Magistretti / Manufacturer: Artemide / Eclisse is a lamp designed by the Italian designer Vico Magistretti in 1965 for the Italian furniture and lighting company Artemide, which started production in 1967.
It is one of the most important industrial design products of the 20th century and has become one of the symbols of Italian design in the world. It is part of the permanent collection of the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York and has been exhibited in many museums dedicated to design, contemporary art and furniture around the world.
It was awarded the Compasso d'Oro Prize in 1967 and is still sold today.
It is a table lamp, with direct or diffused light, but also designed for wall installation. The concept, as is easy to imagine, derives from the astronomical phenomenon, which is represented in Vico Magistretti's project not only in the name, but also in the formal and technical characteristics of the lamp itself. The latter in fact allows its user to darken, at will, the light source by sliding a full round body over it and therefore to regulate the luminous flux; if the light source is completely covered, only the external glow remains, reminiscent of a total eclipse.
Composed of very simple shapes, it is formed by three hemispheres: base, fixed external cap and mobile internal cap. It is inspired, according to Magistretti, by the blind lanterns of miners or thieves (an inspiration that he says came to him in the subway).
The lamp immediately received international attention, with interest given to its formal originality, its aesthetic harmony and, above all, its innovation in the field of lighting.
It is still in production, however the most recent models receive a slight design modification introduced in 1990, namely the insertion of a Noryl wheel, to adjust the light beam without directly touching the internal sphere, in order not to get burned: this measure also allowed it to obtain the European ENEC Certification for its Construction and Electrical Safety. The “S” on the case back instead refer to the certification Marks that Artemide had originally turned to; “S” therefore stands for the Scandinavian SEMKO brand and the Swiss brand, which allowed the device to be freely marketed throughout Europe. Subsequently, all the brands were grouped into a single European brand, ENEC, and finally replaced with the CE marking. Unfortunately, product traceability in the 60s and 70s was not yet so decisive, Artemide began to make its products traceable between the 70s and 80s: now it is possible to separate the back from the base and check the production label – a series of numbers that identify the batch, the production date (week and year) and the production unit.
 
The piece for sale:

it does not have the Noryl wheel, being older;
it features the hole on the top of the internal shell, a detail present only in the first series;
it is marked (S) for European marketing;
does not have a production batch label;
it mounts a small E14 sphere bulb with a diameter of 45mm, milky white instead of transparent, to respect Magistretti's original idea: the opaline or milky white bulb makes the aesthetics more "appealing", furthermore at the time of Eclisse's design the use of LED was not yet widespread!

* Thanks to Artemide for the support in cataloging this product. https://www.artemide.com/it/home