My father, Architect Tad Leski, came up with the concept for the Metropolitan Opera chandeliers by accident while working on the design of the Opera House for Wallace K. Harrison. He was hurriedly finishing a perspective sketch of the interior of the Opera for a meeting of W.K. Harrison, John D. Rockefeller III, chairman of the board of Lincoln Center and Rudolf Bing, the general manager of the Opera House. In the rush to finish, a fat drop of white paint fell from the brush onto the drawing. The splatter extended across the image, resembling an explosion of fireworks. He thought it looked like refracted light from a chandelier, and added lines attaching the splattered droplets so that it would be interpreted to be the points light projecting from a chandelier.

Rockefeller and Bing both thought the sketches were great and they particularly liked the idea of the exploded geometry of the splotch as the form of the chandeliers.

A conceptual sketch of the chandeliers was made. A model of one chandelier was made and both were sent to Hans Harald Rath of Lobmeyr for design development and fabrication.