Lamp with 16 Branches in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2017

Lamp with Sixteen Branches

Object Details

Period: Eastern Han dynasty (25–220)

Culture: China

Medium: Earthenware with pigment

Dimensions: H. 43 5/16 in. (110 cm); Diam. of base: 14 3/4–15 3/8 in. (37.5–39 cm)

Classification: Ceramics

Credit Line: Lent by Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
This lamp, one of the most elaborate Han examples of its kind, takes the shape of a tree with sixteen branches. The branches follow two prototypes: one has a crane, and the other, a winged immortal riding a dragon. A gigantic turtle in the lowermost basin carries the trunk on its back. (Both the turtle and the crane were Han symbols of longevity.) Three figures and twenty-five animals populate the mountain-shaped base, whose surface is painted with clouds. The clouds suggest a place high above the human world, thus transforming the lamp into a land of immortality—appropriate imagery for a funerary object such as this.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/640947