Quoizel Bismarck 5 Light Chandelier - Earth Black

Five Black Hexagons, Suspended

Five open hexagons fan out from one black stem, each holding a brass socket and a bare lamp. No shade, no glass, nothing diffusing the light. You get the outline of the shape and the filament sitting inside it, which is a bolder thing to hang over a table than it first sounds.

What Earth Black Really Looks Like

Earth Black is flat and deep with no gloss to it, closer to soft charcoal than to a piano black. The lamp holders do the opposite job: aged brass, warm and brushed, left slightly mottled rather than polished bright. That contrast is the entire design. This one comes in a single finish, so there is no colour decision to make, though the listing carries black, gold and brass tags because both metals are doing real work. One thing the close photographs make obvious is that a clear lamp suits it far better than an opal one. Frosted glass flattens the brass and the hexagon outlines lose their edge.

How It Works

Five E27 lamps, one per hexagon, sitting upright in the brass holders. Bulbs are not supplied. The fitting hangs from a round ceiling plate 13cm across and 2cm deep, with a short length of chain feeding into a rigid rod, so the drop sets anywhere between 39.4cm and 115.4cm. Dimming is possible if you fit dimmable lamps on a compatible dimmer. It is Class I, which means an earth connection is required, and at 6.4kg it wants a sound ceiling fixing. Have a qualified electrician install it.

Where It Works Best

This is the widest of the Bismarck ceiling fittings at 63.6cm, and the spread is roughly circular, so it suits a round dining table, a square hall ceiling, or the middle of a living room where you walk around it. The family splits neatly. The linear pendant sets five hexagons in an interlocking row 101.6cm long for a rectangular table. The single mini pendant is one 25.4cm hexagon for over a worktop. The wall light puts that same hexagon flat against plaster. Only the chandelier reads as one wide cluster. Give it a bit of ceiling height, because the frames land at eye level if you drop it too far in a standard room.

Quoizel, The Company Behind It

Quoizel began in Manhattan in 1930, founded by Michael Chaikin as a small lamp company. Its first trade was hurricane lamps that burned oil, since a good many American homes were not yet wired for anything else. Nearly a century later it is selling bare filament geometry like this. A long way from an oil font and a glass chimney, and yet the instinct is unchanged: build the fitting around a light you can actually see.

Good To Know

• Five E27 lamps required, not supplied
• Steel construction, Earth Black finish with aged brass lamp holders
• Height 22cm, diameter 63.6cm
• Drop adjustable from 39.4cm to 115.4cm
• Ceiling plate 13cm diameter, 2cm deep
• Dimmable if dimmable lamps are fitted
• Class I, earth connection required
• Weight 6.4kg
• Two year warranty
• No ingress rating is quoted, so keep it to dry rooms

Questions People Ask

How is this different from the Bismarck linear pendant? The chandelier spreads its five hexagons around a central stem to roughly 63.6cm, lighting a round area. The linear pendant arranges the same five hexagons in an interlocking honeycomb row 101.6cm long, which is the one to pick for a long table.

What bulbs should I fit? Five E27 lamps of your choosing. They are fully on show, so a squirrel cage or teardrop filament style is the honest match for these frames. Pick dimmable versions if you want to dim it.

Can it go in a bathroom? No ingress rating is published for this fitting, so treat it as a dry room piece and keep it out of bathrooms.

NB: Unfortunately we are unable to deliver this item to the following postcodes: AB, DD, GY, HS, IM, IV, JE, KW, PA, PH, TR, ZE. We are also unable to deliver to Northern Ireland (BT postcodes).

Height: 22cm
Diameter: 63.6cm
Minimum Drop: 39.4cm
Maximum Drop: 115.4cm

We offer free standard delivery on orders within the UK Mainland* (an additional fee applies for the Isle of Wight, the Isle of Man, the Scottish Isles, parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Isles and International).

*Collingwood orders under £150 incur a delivery fee of £9.95 inc. VAT.
*Any order under £49 incurs a delivery fee of £9.95.