Lamp in the Form of a Comic Mask

The body of this Roman lamp takes the form of a comic mask set on a low turned foot. Oil was added through the open mouth of the mask and the nozzle for the wick emerges below the beard. A pointed leaf decorates the space on top of the nozzle between the lamp's body and the small, round mouth. The mask represents the "Leading Slave", a sly and resourceful stock character from Greek New Comedy (about 320–290 B.C.), and shows the typical features of a scoop-shaped beard, snub nose, and furrowed brow. His open, upturned mouth is fringed with a finely incised semicircular beard and serves as the filling hole. Most of the hair is covered with a kerchief, from which short tassels of corkscrew curls emerge at the sides. The headdress is crowned with a wreath of ivy leaves and berries in high relief, which continues below to adorn the base of the lamp’s handle. Set low on the body, a fragment of the upswept loop handle survives in the form of a stylized vine with a turned-back leaf. Masks and other images alluding to the theater appear in all manner of decoration in Roman villas, from frescoes and other interior decoration to utensils and silverware.