Rocket Spotlight Floor Lamp from JP54, 1970s

A genuinely unusual Soviet studio spotlight, its rounded, finned shape earning it two nicknames among collectors, the lemon press and the rocket, mounted here on a German army field tripod from Munich's Ertel-Werk.

This example is marked JP54 and dates to the 1970s, produced in the Soviet Union at a time when studio and stage lighting across the Eastern Bloc favored this kind of rugged, unmistakably industrial design, built to work reliably rather than to look refined. The tapering, ribbed housing is distinctive enough that collectors in the vintage trade know it as often by nickname as by model number.

The tripod beneath it comes from a very different tradition. Ertel-Werk of Munich was a precision instrument maker with roots stretching to 1802, founded by Georg von Reichenbach and later continued under Traugott Ertel's name, building astronomical and surveying instruments known across Germany for their accuracy. That same precision made the company useful to the war effort during the Second World War, when it was called on to manufacture components for the Enigma cipher machine. Two very different national traditions of precision manufacturing now stand together in a single floor lamp, one built for the stage, one built for the field.

The spotlight has been fully rewired and fitted with an E27 socket, approximately 3 meters of electrical cord and an inline switch, and accepts any standard bulb type. The spotlight measures 26 x 27 x 26 cm. Mounted on the tripod, the total height adjusts from 105 to 152 cm.