LOT 0848

Roman Redware Oil Lamp with Amphora

NORTH AFRICA, 5TH CENTURY A.D.

5 3/4 in. (226 grams, 14.5 cm).

With a lug handle and oval elongated body, two central filling-holes flanking the image of a kantharos, enclosed within a decorative shallow border on the shoulders with alternating floral S’s, concentric circles and quatrefoils; two thin concentric circles on the base with letter B in the middle, possibly the potter’s mark. [No Reserve]

From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

See Bussière, J., Lindros Wohl, B., Ancient Lamps in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 2017, nos.499-500, p.357.

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 a fine clay, glossy light orange slip, and carefully executed decoration using a great number of neatly drawn shoulder motifs. The kantharos is a fairly common motif in Early Christian imagery, as a container of life giving water.