LOT 0855

Late Roman Redware Lamp Face with Military Officer

LATE 5TH-EARLY 6TH CENTURY A.D

4 1/2 in. (101 grams, 11.4 cm).

Comprising the upper part of an oil lamp with part of the handle in situ; band of concentric circles and floral motifs to the shoulder; discus with low-relief figure seated with flexed knees, wearing a thigh-length tunic and cingulum military belt over bracae, and a short sagum clasped at the right shoulder; with short hair and beard; right arm folded across the body holding the hem of the sagum; modern suspension ring to reverse. [No Reserve]

Acquired 1960s-1990s.
From the late Alison Barker collection, a retired London barrister.

See Bussière, J., Lindros Wohl, B., Ancient Lamps in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 2017, nos.493-500, p.35.

The lamp belongs to the type Atlante X or Hayes II A. The so-called Christian lamps in Terra Sigillata Africana have been classified by Hayes into two major types, I and II. He has distinguished two classes in his type II, according to geographic place of manufacture or origin. Subtype II A group lamps from central Tunisia are characterised by the use of fine clay, glossy light orange slip, and carefully executed decoration using a great number of neatly drawn shoulder motifs. The image of this military officer is unusual, and it can represent an imperial primikerios of the African army after the reconquest of Belisarius in 533 A.D.