Indian Sacred Bird (Hamsa) Lamp Finial

This beautifully cast hamsa or sacred swan is from 17th-18th century South India when the various Nayak dynasties ruled South India following the downfall of Vijayanagara Empire. The image would have served as an oil reservoir for a lamp.

It has been cast with a splendid sweep of tail feathers which match the crest on the swan’s head. Together with the swan’s beautifully modelled, plumped-out breast, the overall form suggests a sweeping arc.

The wings on both sides have been engraved to suggest ample feathers, and the breast, legs and head have been engraved to suggest more of a down covering.

The beak has a delightful and sensitively modelled upwards curve.

The high quality of the casting is testified by the fluidity of the flow of feathers and other details.

The swan perches on a round, tiered stand. There is a hole drilled to its breast to emit oil which would have dripped into a tray or oil pan on which the swan stood and where a wick would have been placed.

The swan has been fixed to a wooden base and this itself has extraordinary wear and patina, suggesting the age of the overall piece.

Zebrowski (1997, p. 99-101) illustrates several related South Indian cast hamsas.

Vessels in the form of birds and animals from India can best be understood in the context of comparable objects made centuries earlier in the Middle East (Zebrowski, 1997, p. 95). Generally, zoomorphic figures made in India and the Middle East served as ewers, incense burners, decorative finials and oil lamp reservoirs. In India, such vessels represent a rare tradition of non-religious figurative art from a period when realistically rendered animal forms generally were avoided on account of Islamic prohibitions on idolatrous imagery, certainly in north India at least. Cast brass and bronze zoomorphic ewers and lamp finials from South India can be seen to share the Middle Eastern Islamic antecedents of similar pieces from Mughal and Sultanate India.

The example here is highly decorative and sculptural. It is among the most realistically rendered examples we have seen.