9 table lamps to brighten rainy days

Your partner has already called it a night, but you just hit the climax of the book and can’t bring yourself to close it. So the Truffle Lamp, with its compact size and alabaster dome, casts a warm glow over the pages, giving you enough light to keep turning them without waking the whole room.

What if a little piece of Denmark’s coastline came home with you?  Designed by GUBI, the Hornbæk portable lamp channels the spirit of Denmark’s northern shore. Its folded canvas shade takes the shape of a sail, while the hand-glazed ceramic base and antique brass handle are reminiscent of the lanterns that once lit the Danish coast. And this little lamp will follow you wherever the night takes you. 

An afternoon with nowhere to be, rain trickling outside the window and a cup of coffee going lukewarm within reach has its own way of making time slow down. Inspired by the horizon and its ever-shifting landscapes, this lamp by Ravi Vazirani captures that same ethereal pause in a hand-painted shade, with a shifting landscape moonlit across its matte-glazed ceramic base. 

What if light could be directed by touch? Grammoluce, a table lamp designed by Min Dong of Studio Habits for Martinelli Luce, uses three satin-finish glass spheres to control its intensity. Placed on the lamp’s surface, the spheres press into the Lycra fabric stretched across its circular glass structure, bending it to alter the way the light diffuses. 

What if a little piece of Renaissance found its way onto your table? Carved from ivory-toned alabaster, the Lira table lamp by Mugen carries old-world charm. A warm ambient glow filters through the stone, highlighting its natural veining and etched details across the surface. 

Glowing like a crystalline jewel, the SuperWire T table lamp designed by Formafantasma fuses planar hexagonal glass panels and polished aluminium elements. A custom-made light source suffuses the glass with a warm glow, while the removable design makes the light source easy to replace or repair when needed. 

Imagine standing in the middle of a rainforest, thick moss underfoot and greenery pressing in from every side. Designed by Harshita Jhamtani Designs in collaboration with Length Breadth Height, the Bean table lamp is cut from rainforest green marble, its deep tones and veining carrying the rugged texture of the forest floor. A dome-shaped shade in polished alabaster sits atop the base, its earthy veins picking up the tones of the marble at the base.

Terracotta walls in older parts of Jaipur gain a fine, warm texture with age. Ruscello, a lamp by Lumehaus, carries a similar speckled texture across its shade and stem. The narrow cone widens towards its base and glows from within instead of casting light outward. 

Power cuts in school used to send everyone reaching for the nearest notebook page, folding it into a pleated fan and waving it in front of their faces until the power came back on. That same crease reappears in the Ballet table lamp, pleated around a solid-wood base. It casts a soft glow, recalling those familiar moments from afternoons spent waiting for the lights to return.