Fragment of a marble lamp; in the panels, pairs of confronted sphinxes, sirens, and griffins; on the nozzles, pairs of lions, rams' heads, and birds perched atop lotus flowers growing from palmettes.
The sides are decorated in low relief with pairs of sphinxes, griffins, and sirens. The nozzles have pairs of lions, rams' heads, and birds standing on lotus flowers. (The large fragment with rams' heads and the upper part of the griffins has been lent by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, L.1974.44.)
Artwork Details
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Title:Marble lamp
Period:Archaic
Date:6th century BCE
Culture:Greek
Medium:Marble, Calcite
Dimensions:H. 2 1/2 in. (6.4 cm) diameter 6 1/2 in. (16.5 cm)
Classification:Miscellaneous-Stone
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1906
Accession Number:06.1072
Said to be from Thebes
[Until 1906, with Costis A. Lembessis, Paris]; acquired in 1906, purchased from C.A. Lembessis.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 73, fig. 43, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 79, fig. 48, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 79, fig. 48, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 31, 183, pl. 21g, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1954. Catalogue of Greek Sculptures. no. 8, p. 6, pl. 11, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 19, p. 34, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 42, pp. 57, 416, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lazzarini, Lorenzo and Dr. Clemente Marconi. 2014. "A New Analysis of Major Greek Sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum: Petrological and Stylistic." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 49: pp. 125, 130, fig. 23.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. no. 8, pp. 27, 66–67, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.