MIDDLE-LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD, 4TH-3RD CENTURY BC

Bronze figural lamps of this type have been found in tombs dating from the middle or late Warring States period (475-221 BC). Two of these excavated examples depict kneeling figures. One kneeling man of large size (28.3 cm. high) in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, reputed to have come from a tomb at Jincun, Luoyang, Henan province, is illustrated by Guolong Lai, "Uses of the Human Figure in Early Chinese Art", Orientations, June 1999, pp. 49-55, fig. 8. As with the base of the present lamp, the man kneels, as if in respect, and holds a tube in his hands in front of his chest, the tube meant to hold the stem of the now-missing lamp. The kneeling man that forms the base of a lamp excavated from Shangcunling, Sanmenxia, Henan province, fig. 9, is stylisticallly more similar to the present figure, and also still retains the lamp, which has a bifurcated bottom and large channeled oil ring on top.