Palette in the Form of a Fish (c. 3500–2950 BCE): Art, History and Details

Palette in the Form of a Fish (c. 3500–2950 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Stone palettes were used for grinding eye paint worn for cosmetic purposes and to protect against sun glare and eye infections. There were two types: green, made from malachite (copper ore), and black, made from galena (lead ore). As funerary items, these ores may have had a deep significance for the deceased as symbols of regeneration and rebirth: the rich soil of the banks of the Nile (black), and the lush vegetation it sustained (green).

Object facts

• Title: Palette in the Form of a Fish
• Date: c. 3500–2950 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Predynastic (5000–2950 BCE), Naqada II–III (3650–3000 BCE)
• Type: Tools and Equipment
• Technique: graywacke
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Predynastic
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1989.32

A detail from the museum

This fish shape is one of the most common for Egyptian cosmetic palettes.

Collection credit

Bequest of Elizabeth M. Skala

Further reading listed by the museum

• E. H. T. “The Year in Review: Selections 1989.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 2 (February 1990): 38–78.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.
• Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999

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.