J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Ancient Chinese Bronzes
March 19 - April 9, 2011
17.
A BRONZE RAM-FORM LAMP (YANG DENG)
Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 8)
well cast in the form of plump recumbent ram with slender legs tucked under and held close at the sides, shown facing straight ahead, with long ribbed horns curled behind pointed ears and a stylized goatee extending from the chin to the rounded chest, the domed back separately made and attached to the body by a flanged hinge at the back of the head, allowing the hollowed underside of the back to serve as a container to hold lamp-oil and a wick when swung open to rest above the ram’s head, the ram’s pointed tail at the back also serving as a small handle, the exterior surface decorated all over with incised bands of different linear designs, crosshatching and stippling, with a smooth dark patina mottled in reddish-brown.
Length 5 1⁄2 inches (14 cm)
From the Collection of Lord Cunliffe (1899-1963), no. A51
A very similar bronze ram-form lamp, also with finely incised surface decoration, in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, is illustrated by Fontein and Wu in Unearthing China’s Past, Boston, 1973, pp. 108-109. Another similar lamp with engraved surface designs is in the collection of the Musée Guimet, illustrated by Delacour in De bronze, d’or et d’argent: Arts somptuaires de la Chine, Paris, 2001, pp. 92-93; and a ram-form lamp of this type in the collection of the Museum Rietberg is illustrated by Brinker in Bronzen aus dem alten China, Zurich, 1975, pp. 110-111, no. 60.
A large bronze ram-form lamp without engraved decoration excavated in 1968 at Mancheng, Hebei province, from the tomb of prince Liu Sheng who was king of Zhongshan from 154 B.C. and died in 113 B.C., was included in the exhibition of archaeological finds from the People’s Republic of China at the Royal Academy, London, and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue entitled The Genius of China, London, 1973, p. 106, no. 164. The same lamp is illustrated again by Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens in The Han Dynasty, New York, 1982, p. 106, no. 63; by Yang (ed.) in The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology, Washington, D.C., 1999, pp. 404-405, no. 135; and in the excavation report Mancheng Han mu fajue baogao (Excavation of the Han Tombs at Man-ch’eng), Vol.s I-II, Beijing, 1980, in a line drawing on p. 68, no. 47 in Vol. I, and pl. XXXIV in Vol. II.
Other bronze ram-form lamps in museum and private collections are illustrated in Royal Ontario Museum: The T.T. Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art, Toronto, 1996, no. 33; in the China Institute exhibition catalogue by Schloss, Art of the Han, New York, 1979, p. 58, no. 34, from the collection of Paul Singer; in Guangxi wenwu zhengping (Gems of Cultural Relics in Guangxi), Nanning, 2002, p. 81, no. 94, with a note indicating that the lamp was excavated in 1982 from Xinghua county, Long’an, Chashan and currently is in the Yulin City Museum; by Michaelson in Gilded Dragons: Buried Treasures from China’s Golden Ages, British Museum, London, 1999, p. 58, no. 29, excavated in 1984 at Baoji, Fengxiang county, Shaanxi province and currently in the collection of the Xi’an City Cultural Relics Storehouse.
西漢 銅羊燈
長 14 厘米
17.
A BRONZE RAM-FORM LAMP (YANG DENG)
Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 8)
Length 5 1⁄2 inches (14 cm)