Hi all, Researching lamp history through patents has been one of the keys for me to understand the development of the incandescent burner/lamps. During the lamp patent searches I have made, I have saved the known and useful patents, but also the innovative, imaginative and crazy ones, that you thought never would end up in any production. Today I will present to you one of these crazy patent lamps, now in a real existing lamp and after a short restoration process. This is an alcohol incandescent lamp from an earlier unknown lamp inventor; the French priest (abbé Joseph Mouralis). Mouralis has three valid lamp patents for this type of lamp FR420007A, FR14628E and FR591191A, with the earliest from 1909. The patents were also meant for alcohol fed stoves with the same wick fuel feeding principle as the lamps. This lamp burner is primarily based on the patent from Schuster & Baer in 1895, where a wick fed alcohol burner is heated by a pilot wick. Many where using that type of burner around the year of 1900 .... Bec Callophane (Engelfred), Bec Regina, Bec Prefere 1 and 2 (Société Continentale Nouvelle) and Auer. The Mouralis lamp was built to use an inverted mantle burner head, as opposed to most the other alcohol burner lamps named above, that were using an upright mantle burner. The new thing that Mouralis adds in his invention is the way of fuel feeding the burner system. For both his lamps and stoves he uses a glass ball fuel reservoir mounted high, where the tunnel like opening on the underside of the glass ball, has a cork with a wick. After filling the glass ball with alcohol you put on the cork with wick and then you place the ball in the upright brass container tube connected to the actual lamp and burner. With gravity you get a dripping process from the alcohol glass reservoir through the wick and that alcohol dripping serves the wick fed burner through the brass connected pipe, with alcohol. With the pilot wick lit, you got a heating process in the burner and vapour pressing through the jet to the nozzle with mantle and .... voila .... the lamp is lit. This is not a vapour/gravity fed lamp in terms of atmospheric pressure used, although gravity is needed for the fuel feed dripping process. Instead this lamp would be characterized as a wick fed lamp, as there is a wick both in lamp fuel feeding and for the burner itself. This lamp is marked on the burner head with "Saekular-Licht" which indicates Germany as the manufacturing country. The burner with gallery is identical to other wick alcohol burners I have, that are identified as "Primus-Spritus-Vergaser", made of the German maker Eckel & Glinicke. So this is probably a German made lamp after the Mouralis patent. What do we know of this Joseph Mouralis. I've searched, but found not much, I'm afraid! From 1911, a newspaper ad of his "Lampe Jeanne D´arc" and also an article from an technical inventors exhibition in Paris with a photo of abbé Mouralis in full priest clothing in front of his lamp/stove stand. An exceptional flash of a reality gone, in that grainy black and white photo. I think in that photo that the abbé Mouralis is proudly showing the result of his invention, in terms of lamps and alcohol stoves. I am also proud of owning one of his very rare lamps. /Conny Mouralis lamp together with Primus-Spritus-Vergaser (E & G) ........................... Mouralis patent 1909/1911 ............. Lampe Jeanne D´arc .......................... L´abbe Mouralis at his stand on the Concours Lepine .........
Hello, really thanks for sharing these lamps! It’s unbelievable how a lamp, when presented how you always do Conny, gains so much old fashion atmosphere and interest… lamps that probably many times we just see and pass over for our lack of lamps knowledge, knowledge that is immense in your case. A Korean friend and master once told me: “your eyes can see what they’re trained for” and your eyes clearly are very very trained to discover real gems! Thanks, Nicola
A beautiful and very unusual lamp from a time when style was just as important as function. Thanks Conny.
