THRIFT STORE FIND - ANTIQUE BRONZE VASE ON STONE BASE

Can anyone tell me what I have? I found it at a local thrift store today & bought it for $49 + tax - after I searched ebay for 'ANtique Bronze Vase on Stand Pedestal'; and saw prices from the high 100's to the 1,000's.
But after I got it home I checked again; this time under sold/completed - I didn't see any that sold for over $300 and most were well under!
Did I screw up again? ANY info on this (vase, right?) would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dang!!! I need to shop in your thrift store. I can't lend any info but if you paid 50 and they sell for 300, that's not bad and it ain't a loss!

 

It looks like a lamp base to me, with some seriously scrambled neoclassical imagery.

 

Can you show a better pic on the top? Like looking down into it?

 

This is cropped from your next to last pic. Looks like some damage here, which may be your point.

 

Definitely a lamp base. I thought that thing at the top with all the little holes was very odd. And then you showed the bottom with the hollow brass rod. Bingo.

 

Same points I noticed, but like gauntlett, would like to see top to understand that pointy bit.

 

Guessing it's the finial from the original lamp.

 

Makes sense.

 

Any value? I still think it's bronze, but who knows.
I thought the top (I'll get a pic of it) was a addition - if you start unscrewing it everything starts to get loose - it's keeping the vase/lamp tight to the base.

 

Think that pretty well clinches it - a lamp base.

 

Interesting imagery!
Patd

 

Interesting, but incoherent.

The goddess Diana/Artemis, wearing too much clothing to go chasing through the woodland; a priest & a sacrificial fire.



A man wearing a panther skin & playing an aulos; a woman playing a lyre or kithara, plucking the strings with both hands while the instrument stays in the air without support.



A woman in an ambiguous posture, possibly meant to be dancing; a man in a drunken posture, leaning on a thyrsus.



Photo of the last duo is not as good as the others, so having a little trouble with it. At first couldn't figure what to make of the woman on the left, but with further examination, think she is an Amazon; opposite a warrior with a shield & sword? This is the one spot there is a hint of a story: echos of Achilles & Penthesilea.



The piper, the dancer & definitely the drunk guy all fit with a scene of a bacchanale, although only the aulos player is really dressed appropriately. The lyre doesn't belong; usually the accompaniment to the pipes is provided by percussion instruments. The lyre/kithara, appropriate to Apollo, is also played by the Muses Erato & Terpsichore. I choose to see it as Terpsichore when the figure is on her feet.

Put it together & what have you got? Bibbity bobbity boo.

 

Which woman?

Edit: If you mean the one I said could be dancing, I'm open to suggestions on that one. I was just seeing it as an edge of a billowing scarf, but can see how it could be a snake. The figure is wearing some kind of cap, could almost be a pilos type helmet:



The 'snake' could be the edge of a shield.

 

See edited message above.

 

Making the imagery even more incoherent. Then there are the swan/goose handles, the encircling ivy with what look like grape clusters hanging from them... It's a real hodgepodge.

The way the top is made suggests to me that it had a glass shade of some type that sat in that perforated collar rather than a fabric shade requiring a harp to support it. Must have been quite a look.

 

Something this way:



Which means I think the top has been closed off with a finial, just not one that came from this lamp.