Feline Vessel (1–700 CE): Art, History and Details

Feline Vessel (1–700 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Recuay art is under-studied and it is difficult to know the meaning of the wonderfully stylized feline on whose head perches a small passenger that may be a coatimundi, a nosy, busy, racoon-like animal. Elsewhere in Recuay art, felines are shown as virile predators, making it likely that in general they were symbols of leadership. The feline is painted with white and red slips; after firing, a resist application of black pigment was used to create the dotted pattern.

Object facts

• Title: Feline Vessel
• Date: 1–700 CE
• Culture: Central Andes, North Highlands, Recuay people
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic, red and white slips, black pigment
• Dimensions: Overall: 20.3 x 10.1 x 15.2 cm (8 x 4 x 6 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2009.9

Collection credit

The Charlotte Ekker and Charlotte Van der Veer Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.

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.