This is a bronze lamp from the workshop of Severo da Ravenna in the early 16th century Padua or Ravenna. This lamp is in the form of a grotesque male head mounted on a base of branches. The head is resting on a tripod pillar, enriched with mouldings and masks. The part of objects made in this workshop were joined by handmade screws of the same size and were therefore interchangeable. The foot to this lamp is probably a replacement and the head has been soldered to what appears to be a section of a candlestick.

Severo Calzetta da Ravenna (active 1496 - d. before 1543) was an Italian sculptor. His father, Domenico Calzetta, was probably a sculptor, and he may have been related to the two painters of the same name working in the circle of Mantegna in Padua: Pietro Calzetta (c. 1455–?86) and Francesco Calzetta ( fl 1492–1500). Severo appears to have divided his time between Padua, Ferrara and Ravenna, where he was first recorded in 1496. From 1511, when he made statues for the visit to Ravenna of Pope Julius II, he appears to have remained in that city; the last notice of him there is in 1525. Severo’s only securely documented work is the signed, ascetic marble figure of St John the Baptist, commissioned in 1500 for the entrance to the chapel of S Antonio in Il Santo, Padua (in situ). In his treatise De sculptura (1504), the Neapolitan art theorist Pomponius Gauricus singled out Severo for special mention at the end of his section on bronze sculpture, suggesting that by that date he was an established bronze sculptor, although no specific work is mentioned.