The Jewish community in Denmark, in existence for more than three hundred years, has always been small (under ten thousand people), and thus ceremonial art from this country is uncommon. This lamp was created by silversmith Barukh Shlomo Griegst, who was born in Gardsdai, Lithuania, and emigrated to Denmark in 1902. His arrival coincided with a large migration of eastern European Jews fleeing the pogroms and wars of the early twentieth century. Griegst had also lived in Paris, Berlin, and Dresden, the major cultural and artistic centers of his day. He worked mainly in the style of the German Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil, and this influence can be seen in the organic movement of many elements in the backplate design. The Star of David in particular is rendered in the sinuous plant forms of Art Nouveau, its interlacing lines blending with the rest of the scrollwork.

However, there is a second influence at work in this lamp. On the upper half of the backplate are lions, a menorah with interlaced arms, a Hebrew inscription, and a scalloped top edge, all of which are taken directly from a type of eastern European lamp that was made in the nineteenth century. The interlaced menorah, while it relates formally to Jugendstil, was common on eastern European tombstones from the nineteenth century. Griegst must have been very familiar with this lamp type, and perhaps even owned an example, to have recreated it so faithfully; his Lithuanian origins would make such an association quite reasonable. He has blended the traditional and the modern in a highly personal way.