Newari Oil Lamp Depicting Frog

Shallow black dish trails a long handle, with a small creature crouched in the bowl.

This stone oil lamp depicting a frog is Newari, from Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, and dates to the late 19th or early 20th century. Frogs appear in the folklore and art of many cultures, often connected with water, rain and the fertility of the land. Flat, leaf-shaped dish in grainy dark grey with a thick rounded handle extending from one end. A small sculpted animal sits where handle and bowl meet, and a ridged rim edges one side of the shallow bowl. It is 6 inches wide, 4 deep and 1.5 high.

A ladle with a stowaway, quietly pleased.