Feline Pendant (1000–1550): Art, History and Details

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

The work and its context

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

This memorable jaguar pendant is a nasty precious—nasty because it holds a severed limb (probably human) in its fanged mouth but precious due to its material, its well-polished silky surface, and the charming rendering, which reduces the jaguar to cartoon-like essentials. The warm, rosy color is the result of copper in the alloy.

Object facts

• Title: Feline Pendant
• Date: 1000–1550
• Culture: Isthmian Region, Panama-Costa Rica, Veraguas-Chiriquí style, 11th century-16th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: gold, cast
• Dimensions: Overall: 3.4 x 3 cm (1 5/16 x 1 3/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Intermediate Region
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2015.11

A detail from the museum

In the Panama-Costa Rica region gold ornaments were associated with political and religious authority.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum Masters: 2016-17 Companion Guide. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2016.
• Bergh, Susan E. “Acquisitions 2015: Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 2 (March/April 2016): 32-33.

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.