Large Roman Redware Lamp with Lion

4TH CENTURY A.D. OR LATER

5 1/4 in. (163 grams, 13.5 cm).

A clay lamp with rounded lug handle, shoulder with foliage in relief on each side, separated from the slightly concave discus by a ridge, which continues toward the round-tipped nozzle forming a wide channel between the discus and the wick hole; two equal-sized filling-holes at upper and lower part of the discus decorated with a lion running left, raised slightly convex base-ring with an additional inner ring.

Provenance

Acquired from a central London Antiquities Dealers Association (ADA) member's gallery in 1990.
From the estate of a Lancashire gentleman.

Literature

See Bussière, J., Lindros Wohl, B., Ancient Lamps in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 2017, p.349, no.488, for the type.

Footnotes

The present lamps seems to be molded in Terra Sigillata Africana (TSA) = African Red Slip (ARS) and can be related to Atlante types VI. The passage from lamps of Loeschcke type VIII in TSA with a heart-shaped nozzle ( = Atlante form I) to the channelled so-called Christian lamps ( = Atlante forms VIII and X, or Hayes types I and II) was progressively achieved by three factors: the transformation of the initially circular discus into an oval shape, the elongation of the nozzle, and the increased width and length of the channel.

CONDITION

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LOT 0595