Lot 170. A bronze 'kneeling birdman' lamp, Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD); 14.2 cm. Lot sold: 189,000 HKD (Estimate: 100,000 - 150,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2022

modelled as a kneeling figure with neatly combed hair of medium length, prominent eyes, a flat triangular nose, a tightly closed beak, and a short tail, his left hand resting on his folded knee, his right arm outstretched, raising a shallow lamp dish, all supported by a pedestal with four cornered feet.

Provenance: Eskenazi Ltd, London, 19th April 1988.

Literature: Jessica Rawson and Emma C. Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1990, cat. no. 46.

Exhibited: Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1990.
British Museum, London, on loan, 1992-2015.

Note: The present lot belongs to a small group of bronze lamps, all of which are modelled with a distinctive ape-like human figure kneeling on a plinth and holding the stem of the lamp tray in his hand, sold at Christie's New York, 22nd March 2019, lot 1603; another, formerly in the collection of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, now in the British Museum, London, accession no. 1893,1101.14; an example attributed to the Western Han dynasty in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, accession no. S2012.9.2133; one missing the lamp dish, from C.T. Loo and the collection of Stephen Junkunc, III, sold in our New York rooms, 10th September 2019, lot 249; another sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1986, lot 206; and a further example, missing both the lamp and the stem, in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, illustrated in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1989, pl. 251.