Mouth Mask (100 BCE–700 CE): Art, History and Details

Mouth Mask (100 BCE–700 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Nasca figures, like one on a bowl nearby, are shown wearing such forehead ornaments and mouth masks similar to these. The mouth mask hung from the nasal septum, the oval opening surrounding the mouth and the bristles positioned as feline whiskers, here transformed to serpents. Both were cut from sheet gold; details were worked freehand while the sheet rested on a soft surface.

Object facts

• Title: Mouth Mask
• Date: 100 BCE–700 CE
• Culture: Peru, South Coast, Nasca
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: hammered gold alloy
• Dimensions: Overall: 14 x 19.4 cm (5 1/2 x 7 5/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1945.377

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen. "Early Peruvian Pottery." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 3 (March 1950): 54-56.
• Kathman, Barbara A. A Cleveland Bestiary. Cleveland, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981.

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.