LOT 0165

Elaborate Roman Bronze Oil Lamp with Lion Mask

1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

9 1/8 in. (1 kg, 23.3 cm).

Substantial hollow-formed drum-shaped body with waisted nozzle, lateral integral lion-mask, stepped discus with leaf detailing, pelta-shaped reflector plate to rear with lateral wreath detailing and palmette motif; three-bar caged handle beneath.

Acquired on the German art market in 1987.
Ex Gorny and Mosch, 18 December 2013, no.502.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12346-225410.

Cf. Walters, H.B., Catalogue of the Greek and Roman Lamps in the British Museum, London, 1914, plate VII, no.59; plate VIII, no.63, for similar; Bailey, D.M., A catalogue of the lamps in the British Museum, IV, Lamps of metal and stone, and lampstands, London, 1996, no. Q3639, for the typology.

This lamp belongs to the typology of ‘rounded bodies and volute spines’, typical of 1st or early 2nd century A.D. These lamps had fairly shallow and round-walled oil-chambers with long flat-topped nozzles with splayed tips (here very shallow). The majority of these lamps are of Italic manufacture, and similar have been found in Pompeii (see lamp in Ashmolean Museum ANFORTNUM B.186).