Most of us think of chandeliers as belonging to Grand Chateau of France or the palaces of Europe.
In fact the sales of these beautiful lighting items are still big business today.
Not all have to be the enormous crystal affairs found in the grand ballrooms of Royalty.
Designs today can look fantastic in modern offices and private homes.
The history of this form of lighting begins almost from man's discovery of candle making and the word itself is derived from the very word 'candle'.
Medieval paintings exist showing a simple cross of wood hanging from a ceiling with four candles, one at each end of the cross.
This early form of lighting continued in a similar way for many centuries until the invention of ironwork resulted in more elaborate and safer designs.
After hundreds of years of more and more elaborate metal hanging lighting fixtures, the next major advancement arrived with the invention of crystal glass.
As this is being written, a little news article has just been announced that in Mesopotamia archaeologists have discovered a six thousand year old wine press.
Mesopotamia is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and even today archaeologists are discovering more and more about this hugely historical place.
The relevance to this subject is that once again the first authenticated use of glass was also from this part of the world and the next development in overhead lighting involved the use of glass.
Although chandeliers today do not necessarily have to be all lead glass and reliant on reflection, the models from eighteen and nineteen century Europe were nearly all of this design as the object was to reflect as much candle light as possible.
Today with the availability of electric light which can be of more or less unlimited brilliance, relying on reflected light from lead glass is not so important.
The range nowadays covers not only glass but chrome fittings as well as brass and patterned stain glass.
Obviously, a lot of modern low ceiling homes would not necessarily benefit from a hanging ceiling light of this nature, but many modern offices could look a whole lot better than the ubiquitous strip lighting.
There can scarcely be a head of state whose office, or certainly state room, does not have this form of lighting.
The Green room at The White House has a superb example, as do most of the state rooms at Buckingham Palace.
For many years the largest of all belonged to The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire at his palace in Constantinople.
It still hangs there today in all its magnificent beauty.
Desperate for the best and biggest of everything, the Sultan on his travels became envious of the ones he saw on his visit to some stately chateau and palaces in France.
In particular, at the fabled Palace of Versailles, the opulence of everything from furniture to lighting must have made even his spoiled eyes nearly pop out.
Even today there is scarcely a large room which would not benefit from these elaborate and beautiful forms of lighting.