The early electric period, when fixtures showed close kinship to the gas lamps they replaced, coincided with a revival of the architecture that predated the American Revolution. The dentil cornices that ring Richmond’s shade tops evoke the trim-work of an 18th-century Virginia manor house, while the vented glass and strong metal tubing are a legacy of the fixture’s gas lamp predecessors.The early electric period, when fixtures showed close kinship to the gas lamps they replaced, coincided with a revival of the architecture that predated the American Revolution. The dentil cornices that ring Richmond’s shade tops evoke the trim-work of an 18th-century Virginia manor house, while the vented glass and strong metal tubing are a legacy of the fixture’s gas lamp predecessors.