Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This large, heavy handle terminates in the head of a feline, whose neck is enclosed in a ruff of hair emerging from an eight-petaled calyx. Each petal has a tiny knob at the tip. The mouth is open, showing four incisors, and the tongue hangs down as though the animal is panting from the heat of the flame. Its right eye is round, while the left is almond-shaped and has a punched pupil. Parallel lines of light stippling indicate fur on the top of its head. A groove in the center of its brow divides the fur into a tuft over each eye. Striations represent the fur on the neck, whiskers, muzzle, and brows. A parted section of fur is shown on the handle. A collar with diagonal grooves suggests that a twisted rope is represented around the neck. At the opposite end is a palmette attachment plate where the handle was joined to the reservoir.
Felines were common terminals on Roman lamp handles in the Imperial period. Some held the chain to a lid in their mouths (1). This particular head is comparable to two on tripod legs in the Walters Art Museum dated by D. K. Hill to the end of the third century CE (2). The Walters’ panthers have large spots, while the Harvard panther does not. Moreover, the fact that the Latin word pantherae could refer to leopards or any of the class of spotted felines cautions us against using the term “panther” too readily (3). An earlier date for this piece can be suggested by comparison with pieces found at Pompeii (4).
Lamp handles 1965.26 and 1969.177.25 represent a type that is well known from finds at Pompeii and Herculaneum and was popular throughout the Roman Empire from the late first century BCE into the third century CE (5). The bodies of the intact lamps are pear-shaped with a central fill hole and a rounded or splayed and fluked nozzle. The handles curve upward from the point of attachment on the side of the reservoir with the terminus over the center of the reservoir. The lamps were made to sit on a stand or tripod, to be suspended from chains, or to be held by the handle, which was usually cast separately from the body and attached with lead solder. The handles are D-shaped in section, and the undersides are very smooth.
NOTES:
1. See D. M. Bailey, A Catalogue of Lamps in the British Museum 4: Lamps of Metal and Stone, and Lampstands (London, 1996) nos. Q3630 and Q3671, pls. 30 and 48.
2. See D. K. Hill, “Roman Panther Tripods,” American Journal of Archaeology 55.4 (1951): 344-47, esp. 344-45, pl. 38-39.
3. See J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Baltimore, 1996) 17 and 82-86; and G. Zahlhaas, Out of Noah’s Ark, transl. and ed. P. Mottahedeh (Mainz, 1997) 112-13.
4. Compare a complete lamp from Pompeii published in M. Conticello de’ Spagnolis and E. De Carolis, Le lucerne di bronzo di Ercolano e Pompei (Rome, 1988) 143, no. 100, pl. 164; and ibid., no. 101, which has a protome. The detailing of the fur and the facial features is similar to the panther on a fulcrum attachment in the Walters Art Museum, dated to the first century BCE; see E. D. Reeder, Hellenistic Art in the Walters Art Gallery, exh. cat., Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, 1988) 161, no. 60. It is also similar to a lion head in the British Museum dated to 50-150 CE; see Bailey 1996 (supra 1) no. 3671. For extensive bibliography on Roman bronze panthers and other felines, see D. G. Mitten, Classical Bronzes, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art (Providence, 1975) 162-64, no. 47.
5. For the type, see Conticello de’ Spagnolis and De Carolis 1988 (supra 4) 137-40, with extensive references; and C. C. Vermeule, M. Comstock, et al., Sculpture in Stone and Bronze in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Additions to the Collections of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Art 1971-1988 (Boston, 1988) 89, no. 112. For terracotta examples from Gerasa, see R. Rosenthal and R. Sivan, Ancient Lamps in the Schloessinger Collection, Qedem 8 (Jersualem, 1978) 90-91, nos. 368-72; and P. V. C. Baur, The Excavations at Dura-Europus, Final Report 4.3: The Lamps (New Haven, 1947) 74, no. 422, pl. 14 (Yale University Art Gallery, inv. no. 1932.1378), dated to the mid-second century CE. For other animal heads, see Bailey 1996 (supra 1) 39-40, pls. 48-50 and 55. See A. P. Kozloff, D. G. Mitten, and M. Sguaitamatti, More Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection (Mainz, 1986) no. 152, for a complete lamp with a horse head, as well as literature on the type. For a discussion of the type’s dissemination to the vici of the northern provinces through the army, see R. Noll, Das Inventar des Dolichenusheiligtums von Mauer an der Url (Noricum), Der Römische Limes in Österreich 30 (Vienna, 1980) 18-20, pls. 1 and 35.
Jane Ayer Scott
