Painted Drum (500–1000): Art, History and Details

Painted Drum (500–1000) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In the 1600s, music was so important to Indigenous Andean ceremonial life that Spaniards destroyed thousands of musical instruments to hasten Natives’ conversion to Christianity. The number of surviving, older instruments suggests that music had similar import in earlier periods. This rare example is painted with a figure wearing a crescent headdress, an emblem of status; it may have been played by a woman.

Object facts

• Title: Painted Drum
• Date: 500–1000
• Culture: Central Andes, Middle Horizon, North Coast?
• Type: Musical Instrument
• Technique: Animal hide, gesso, wooden slats, pigment
• Dimensions: Overall: 27 x 28 x 12 cm (10 5/8 x 11 x 4 3/4 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2022.37

A detail from the museum

This painted drum may have been played by a woman in antiquity.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

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.