Object Description
A fine Roman terracotta oil lamp featuring a circular body with a decorated discus, scrolling volute spines, and rounded nozzle. On the central, concave discus, a female figure, likely the goddess Venus, is depicted bathing. She is nude from the waist up with her anatomy, including her breasts, ribs, and belly button, rendered naturalistically. Her right hand is raised to her face and her left arm holds together drapery around her lower body. Much detail has been lavished onto the folds of the drapery as it falls around her and clings onto her right leg. Her head is angled slightly downwards and her hair is in an updo. To her left, there is a vase on a column, allowing the viewer to understand that the figure is bathing. With the goddess half-dressed, it is unclear as to whether she is just about to bathe, and thus is removing her clothes, or whether she has just finished bathing and is now dressing. The use of drapery in this image serves to highlight her nudity, drawing the eye upwards towards her torso. The shoulders of the lamp are undecorated, focusing the viewer’s attention on the taboo scene of a goddess in the nude. This scene sits within concentric circles and has a filling hole to the right. The oil lamp sits on a flattened ring foot.
This lamp is categorised as Loeschcke type IV, characterised by its rounded nozzle and volute spines.
Date: Circa 1st Century AD