Lot 628

Byzantine Terracotta Slipper Oil Lamp, Zoomorphic Handle

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Lot 628
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Byzantine Terracotta Slipper Oil Lamp, Zoomorphic Handle
Byzantine Terracotta Slipper Oil Lamp, Zoomorphic Handle
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Byzantine Terracotta Slipper Oil Lamp, Zoomorphic Handle

Estimate: $400 - $600

Starting Bid: $100

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
July 30, 2026 8:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Eastern Mediterranean, Byzantine Empire, ca. 400–800 CE. A mold-made terracotta oil lamp of the elongated slipper type, its buff-orange body tapering to a pinched nozzle darkened from ancient use. The shoulder carries low relief decoration of radiating strokes, herringbone, and small ringed rosettes framing the central filling hole. Rising from the rear is an abstracted zoomorphic handle, its lobed forms suggesting an animal head or ears reduced to a near-geometric form.


Such lamps illuminated homes, workshops, and churches across the Byzantine East, fueled by olive oil drawn through a wick set in the nozzle. Cheap to produce and widely replicated from clay molds, they were among the most common objects of late antique daily life. Size: 3.8" W x 1.8" H x 2.3" D (9.7 cm W x 4.6 cm H x 5.8 cm D).

Slipper lamps of this kind proliferated throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, in Syria-Palestine, Egypt, and Asia Minor, during the transition from Late Roman to early Byzantine and early Islamic production. Their relief-decorated shoulders, densely patterned with geometric and vegetal motifs, allowed workshops to signal both fashion and, at times, confessional identity, though many designs remained purely decorative. The abstracted handle, once perhaps a realistic animal or vegetal terminal, here dissolves into a formal flourish, a hallmark of the period's move toward stylization.

Provenance: private Colorado, USA collection

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Item # 203511

  • Condition: Expected surface wear with some nicks and abrasions. Nice char marks to spout and good remaining detail with scattered earthen deposits.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $749 $25
$750 $1,499 $50
$1,500 $2,999 $100
$3,000 $7,499 $250
$7,500 $14,999 $500
$15,000 $29,999 $1,000
$30,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 + $10,000