3. VERY RARE “EAGLE” FORM LAMP
Warring States (475-221 BC)
5 7/8” (15 cm.) high

The bird of prey is unusually portrayed with naturalistic head and highly stylized spread wings and upturned tail feathers forming the support for an openwork dish with a figure eight border. The feathers, eyes and beak are particularly well delineated in the casting.

No other lamp of this design appears to be published. The nearest example is a later bronze lamp of the Western Han Dynasty, excavated from Mancheng, Hebei Province in 1968, from the tomb of Prince Liu Sheng, published by Li Xueqin, The Wonder of Chinese Bronzes, col. pl. 32. Here, a mythical bird is perched on a coiled dragon with an annular-shaped dish in its beak in contrast to the present bird with the dish supported by its tail. A less elaborate model of an eagle grasping a snake dated to the late Warring States period is illustrated in Zhongguo Wenwu Jinghua Da Cidian, Bronze Edition, no. 1034, excavated in Anhui Province in 1933. Another model of an eagle with outspread wings at the top of a gold crown is published in Zhongguo Wenwu Jinghua Daquan, Gold, Silver, Jade and Stone Edition, p. 87, no. 012, excavated in Inner Mongolia, 1972.
The interlaced figure eight design on the dish may be compared to a series of openwork bronze covers from the earlier Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC). A pair of bronze hu with widely flaring openwork covers is illustrated in Selected Bronzes in the Collection of the Poly Art Museum, Beijing, 1999, pp. 173-6; and another by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Bronzes: Art and Ritual, British Museum, 1987, p. 89, no. 34.