Bird Pendant (c. 1000–1550): Art, History and Details

Bird Pendant (c. 1000–1550) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The kinds of birds represented in pendants of the isthmus are not clear, though the emphasis on spread wings and flight suggests birds that soar, such as eagles or hawks. In addition to their aerial agility, they are powerful birds of prey and, therefore, may have symbolized a warrior's or hunter's ferocity and skill. They were also often linked to the sun. Better understanding is difficult because the makers created no written records.

Object facts

• Title: Bird Pendant
• Date: c. 1000–1550
• Culture: Panama, Veraguas-Chiriquí style, 10th-16th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: cast gold
• Dimensions: Overall: 5.6 x 6.5 x 2 cm (2 3/16 x 2 9/16 x 13/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Intermediate Region
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1943.289

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mitchell, Jan, and Julie Jones. The Art of Precolumbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1985.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Americas. [A Special Exhibition Held in the Museum from Nov. 8, 1945 Through Jan. 6, 1946. 1946.
• Foote, Helen. "Pre-Columbian Pendants from Panama." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 30, no. 10 (December 1943): 149-152.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.