Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Lamp with Sixteen Branches
Eastern Han dynasty (25–220)
Not on view
This lamp, one of the most elaborate Han examples of its kind, takes the shape of a tree with sixteen branches. The branches follow two prototypes: one has a crane, and the other, a winged immortal riding a dragon. A gigantic turtle in the lowermost basin carries the trunk on its back. (Both the turtle and the crane were Han symbols of longevity.) Three figures and twenty-five animals populate the mountain-shaped base, whose surface is painted with clouds. The clouds suggest a place high above the human world, thus transforming the lamp into a land of immortality—appropriate imagery for a funerary object such as this.
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