A terracotta oil lamp composed of a circular discus, tapering sidewalls, volute nozzle embellished with scrolls, moulded acanthus leaves to the discus with central filling hole; 'Clodivs / fecit' written into the base when wet. 4 3/8 in. (85 grams, 11.1 cm wide).

PROVENANCE:
Found Chancery Lane, London, UK, in 1865.
From a 19th century collection and latterly in a London collection.
Accompanied by a small original handwritten card: 'Under the new building in Chancery Lane AD 1865'.

LITERATURE:
See Bussière, J., Lindros Wohl, B., Ancient Lamps in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 2017, p.75, no.94, for the type.

FOOTNOTES:
The lamp belongs to the Loeschcke type IB nozzle form (Bailey type A group III), variant C (Bussière, Lindros Wohl, 2017, fig.1) and it is with all probability of the Augustean-Tiberian period, mainly produced in North Africa, by the workshop of a certain Clodius. These kind of lamps were mould made in a plaster mould.