Bowl (early 1800s): Art, History and Details
Bowl at the Cleveland Museum of Art: early 1800s, wood. Explore the work's context, creator attribution and collection history.
Bowl (early 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.
The work and its context
The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:
Fine wooden bowls were often used during feasts in the Northeastern Woodlands. The heads on the rims may represent spirit beings, perhaps the owner’s guardian spirits, acquired through dreams or visions—thought to be the ultimate sources of truth. The medium may also be profoundly meaningful. A Great Lakes (Meskwaki) Native said in 1911, “The murmur of the trees when the wind passes through is but the voices of our grandparents. Often a whole forest hums with talk . . . we often hear the sound of their laughter and the sound of their lamentations.”
Object facts
- Title: Bowl
- Date: early 1800s
- Culture: Native North America, Northeastern Woodlands
- Type: Wood
- Technique: wood
- Dimensions: Overall: 9 x 20 x 14.6 cm (3 9/16 x 7 7/8 x 5 3/4 in.)
- Collection: AA - Native North America
- Department: Art of the Americas
- Accession number: 1984.12
Collection credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Further reading listed by the museum
- Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1984.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 2 (April 1985): 163–207.
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.
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