Lot 249. A very rare bronze 'figural' lamp, Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 8). Diameter 2 3/8  in., 6 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

cast as a male kneeling figure holding the stem of a lamp on his right hand and his left hand resting on his knee, his face with a prominent beak-shaped mouth and protruding eyes below back-swept hair, all supported on a rectangular plinth raised on four angled feet, the surface with malachite encrustation.

Provenance: C.T. Loo, New York, 9th October 1958.
Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978).

Note: The present lot belongs to a small group of bronze lamps, all of which are modeled with a distinctive ape-like human figure kneeling on a plinth and holding the stem of the lamp tray in his hand, including one exhibited in AncientChinese Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1990, cat. no. 46, and later 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, acc. no. 1893, 1101.14; a third sold in these rooms, 4th June 1986, lot 206; and another, 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.

A rare small bronze 'figural' lamp, Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 8); 5 ½ in. (14 cm.) high. Estimate USD 12,000 - USD 18,000. Price realised USD 100,000 at Christie's New York, 22nd March 2019, lot 1603. © Christie's Image Ltd 2019.

Cf. my post: A rare small bronze 'figural' lamp, Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 8)