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A creature with tied legs.

A horned creature seems to be on its back, with its legs tied together, its neck and head bent up as if looking towards its stomach and legs. There is a large bulge on its stomach, and past the legs its body opens up wide, like a bowl. There are another 4 legs holding the body up, each hoof standing on its own square of material. Between the horns on its head, a large cylinder sticks up from the head and seems to be broken at the top. The material is a smooth red with some green spotting.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1968.109
Title
Lamp in the Shape of a Trussed Male Gazelle
Classification
Lighting Devices
Work Type
lighting device
Date
2nd-4th century CE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Africa, Egypt (Ancient)
Period
Roman Imperial period
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/311074

Location

Location
Level 3, Room 3700, Ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Art, Roman Art
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Leaded bronze
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
14.3 x 10.2 x 10.3 cm (5 5/8 x 4 x 4 1/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: ICP-MS/AAA data from sample, Leaded Bronze:
Cu, 66.64; Sn, 7.36; Pb, 25.42; Zn, 0.009; Fe, 0.07; Ni, 0.04; Ag, 0.04; Sb, 0.06; As, 0.31; Bi, less than 0.025; Co, 0.061; Au, less than 0.01; Cd, less than 0.001

J. Riederer

Chemical Composition: XRF data from Tracer
Alloy: Leaded Bronze
Alloying Elements: copper, tin, lead
Other Elements: iron

K. Eremin, January 2014

Technical Observations: The patina is green with areas of red. The surface has been cleaned mechanically, leaving small scratches in the surface of the corrosion products in most areas. The proper left tripod foot is a modern copper alloy restoration that begins 8 mm from the body. The hinged lid is fixed in place by corrosion products.

The lamp was cast by the lost-wax process. The interior surfaces follow the contours of the exterior at the animal’s rear legs, and it is likely that an indirect casting process was used. Elongated chaplet holes (4 x 1 mm) are visible at both sides of the animal on the surface and in the x-radiograph. The twists in the horns and other larger relief decorations appear to have been worked in the wax. The finer lines depicting the fur are punched into the surface of the bronze cast.

The vertical projection at the gazelle’s forehead is a hollow tube with walls 0.4 mm thick. There is a second tube of bronze inside this tube that is broken off at the same height as the outer tube; the inner tube must have been some form of removable attachment or a holder for the wick. The wall thickness at the tubes and elsewhere is too great to allow penetration by x-radiography. However, looking inside the vessel, it is evident that the seven legs are solid cast, and the neck, which is filled with soil, is hollow, probably all the way into the head. The hinged lid only serves to enlarge the size of the opening used to fill the lamp. Its edges appear finished, indicating that it is complete and would never have completely covered the larger portion of the hole.


Henry Lie (submitted 2001)

Technical Observations: The lamp was cast in the lost wax process. The interior surfaces follow the contours of the exterior at the animal's rear legs, and it is likely that an indirect casting process was used. Elongated chaplet holes (0.4 x 0.1 cm) are visible on the sides of the animal, both on the surface and in the X-radiograph. The twists in the horns and other larger-scale relief decoration appear to have been worked in the wax. The fine lines depicting the fur were punched into the surface of the cast bronze.

The wall thickness of the lamp varies between 0.2 and 0.25 cm. The vertical projection at the gazelle's forehead is a hollow tube with much thinner walls (0.04 cm). A second tube of bronze was inserted inside this tube and is broken off at the top flush with the outer tube; it must have been some form of removable attachment. The walls of the lamp are too thick to allow penetration by X-radiography. Looking inside the vessel, however, it is evident that the seven legs are solid cast, whereas the neck, which is filled with soil, is hollow, probably all the way into the head. The hinged lid only serves to enlarge the size of the opening used to fill the lamp. Its edges appear finished; therefore, it is complete and would never have covered the entire opening.

Most of the lamp surface displays green patina with areas of red. The surface has been mechanically cleaned, leaving small scratches in the surface of the corrosion products. The proper left tripod foot is a modern bronze restoration that starts 0.8 cm from the body. The hinged lid is frozen in place by corrosion products.

Henry Lie

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Mr. and Mrs. Norbert Schimmel, Long Island, NY, (by 1964), gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1968.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norbert Schimmel
Accession Year
1968
Object Number
1968.109
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This gazelle is suspended from its four legs, which are drawn up over its belly. The rear leg and foreleg on each side are crossed at the hocks and bound with rope. The flat hooves face forward and backward at 90 degrees to the body. The body sags to form a deep, rounded reservoir. The long neck curves forward, with crease marks shown in the skin. Its head is in an unnatural position; its muzzle is between its trussed forelegs. Its body and thighs are stippled to indicate fur. Four grooves on the body’s bulging sides indicate ribs or creases. Its open eyes are large, with heavy, hooded lids; a rosette or curly forelock falls between them. There are heavy tufts of hair at the base of its large ears. Straight, spiraled horns extend back from its head, and a large post rises between and slightly in front of them.

On the belly is a hinged, rectangular plate (2.9 x 1.5 cm) showing male genitalia in relief; the surface is stippled like the rest of the animal's body. The plate, which is complete, partially covers a pour hole, presumably to permit the lamp to be filled while burning. The straight end of the plate forms the inner side of the wick hole, which is large (2.9 x 2.1 cm) and rounded.

The lamp stands on a tripod formed by three bent gazelle legs with the flat, cloven hooves on square plates (2 x 2 cm). The proper left foreleg is modern. The gazelle's tail curves downward from under the nozzle and is attached to the bend of the front tripod leg with a shell-like element to form a suspension loop.

A tube projects from the gazelle’s forehead. It has a finished edge into which a rod was inserted. The inner rod is broken off at the level of the outer tube. By analogy with a group of similar lamps, it is likely that the inner tube was a long handle or suspension device terminating in a bird head (1).

The lamp belongs to a group generally associated with Egypt and dated variously from the second century BCE through the second century CE, although only one example comes from a dated context (2). The gazelle (dorcas) is a small genus of antelope known to Pliny and Aelian as being native to North Africa and was a popular import to Rome (3). Roman mosaics and wall paintings usually show the animal captured in a net, but the Harvard lamp preserves an image that occurs throughout ancient Egyptian art and demonstrates that this artistic motif continued in use into the Roman and Coptic periods (4).

NOTES:

1. See M. Dodt, “Eine bronze Öllampe mit Tierkopf aus Zülpich und ihre möglichen Vorbilder,” Kölner Jahrbuch 33 (2000): 329-40, which describes and illustrates five examples (Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, inv. no. U1322; Cairo, Coptic Museum, inv. no. J. E. 38864; British Museum, inv. no. Q3593; Louvre, inv. no. N926; Turin, Museo Egizio, inv. no. 7198; and this piece), which he sees as forerunners of a lamp excavated in late Roman fill at ancient Zülpich. He believes they could be either censors or lamps (ibid., 340). In four examples the rod is attached to the back of the animal's neck; the example in the Louvre (ibid., 355, no. 5) has a similar tube within a tube rising from the forehead. Markings on the British Museum example suggest to Dodt that the long rod was removable when the lamp stood on a table or stand (ibid., 338).

2. See D. M. Bailey, A Catalogue of Lamps in the British Museum 4: Lamps of Metal and Stone, and Lampstands (London, 1996) 19, no. Q3593, pls. 18 and 183, dated to the first to second centuries CE and “made in Egypt.” For an example from a context dated to the second half of the second century CE, see ibid., 50, no. Q3719AE, pl. 61. For a similar example, see J. W. Hayes, Greek, Roman, and Related Metalware in the Royal Ontario Museum: A Catalogue (Toronto, 1984) 158-59, no. 247, an iron lamp from the Fayum dated to the second to first centuries BCE. See also id., Ancient Lamps in the Royal Ontario Museum 1: Greek and Roman Clay Lamps: A Catalogue (Toronto, 1980) 40-41, nos. 192-94, pl. 20, for clay derivatives of the same date also from the Fayum.

3. See J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Baltimore, 1996) 145-47. One of the hunt scenes in the wall paintings at the monastery of St. Apollo at Bawit shows a gazelle hunt; see A. Badawy, Coptic Art and Archaeology: The Art of the Christian Egyptians from the Late Antique to the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 1978) 248, fig. 4.24.

4. D. G. Mitten believes that Harvard's lamp is later than the examples cited above and puts it in the fourth century CE; see id. and A. Brauer, Dialogue with Antiquity: The Curatorial Achievement of George M. A. Hanfmann, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, 1982) no. 56. The unusual lamp in the form of a bound bull from Edfu cited by H. Hoffmann, The Beauty of Ancient Art: Classical Antiquity, Near East, Egypt, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Mainz, 1964) no. 101, is illustrated in P. Labib and V. Girgis, The Coptic Museum and the Fortress of Babylon at Old Cairo (Cairo, 1975) 12, pl. 25, dated to the fifth to sixth centuries CE. Badawy 1978 (supra 3) 321-32, gives examples of the inventiveness of theriomorphic forms in Roman Egypt, among which he cites an open lamp with volute nozzles whose rod-hook is supported by dolphins (ibid., figs. 5.6 and 5.12) and a lamp in Turin, also noted by Dodt 2000 (supra 1). He does not date these examples but discusses them in the context of fifth- to sixth-century CE items. However, the Turin lamp lacks the naturalism and careful surface detailing of the Harvard piece.


Jane Ayer Scott

Publication History

  • Herbert D. Hoffmann, ed., The Beauty of Ancient Art: Classical Antiquity, Near East, Egypt. Exhibition of the Norbert Schimmel Collection, November 15, 1964 to February 14, 1965, exh. cat., Verlag Philipp von Zabern (Mainz, 1964), no. 101.
  • Fogg Art Museum Acquisitions, 1968, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1969), p. 120 (ill.).
  • David Gordon Mitten and Amy Brauer, Dialogue with Antiquity, The Curatorial Achievement of George M. A. Hanfmann, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1982), p. 15, no. 56.
  • Michael Dodt, "Eine bronze Öllampe mit Tierkopf aus Zülpich und ihre möglichen Vorbilder", Kölner Jahrbuch (2000), Vol. 33, 329-40, p. 333, no. 2, figs. 8-9.
  • Ruth Bielfeldt, "The Lure and Lore of Light: Roman Lamps in the Harvard Art Museums", Ancient Bronzes through a Modern Lens: Introductory Essays on the Study of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes, ed. Susanne Ebbinghaus, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2014), 170-91, pp. 185-89, fig. 8.8.a-c.
  • Susanne Ebbinghaus, ed., Ancient Bronzes through a Modern Lens: Introductory Essays on the Study of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes, Harvard Art Museum/Yale University Press (Cambridge, MA, 2014), pp. 185-188, fig. 8.8a-c

Exhibition History

  • The Beauty of Ancient Art: the Norbert Schimmel Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 11/15/1964 - 02/14/1965
  • Dialogue with Antiquity: The Curatorial Achievement of George M.A. Hanfmann, Fogg Art Museum, 05/07/1982 - 06/26/1982
  • Roman Gallery Installation (long-term), Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/16/1999 - 01/20/2008
  • 32Q: 3700 Roman, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project
  • Roman Domestic Art
  • Collection Highlights
  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu