Seated Figure (c. 900–300 BCE): Art, History and Details

Seated Figure (c. 900–300 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Like their contemporaries, the Olmec made figurines but of greenstone rather than clay. This one, whose identity and use are mysterious, holds objects that may address nature's fertility: on the right, perhaps a cut conch shell that refers to water, and on the left, what may be a plant or a bundle of green feathers that symbolizes new vegetation.

Object facts

• Title: Seated Figure
• Date: c. 900–300 BCE
• Culture: Mesoamerica, Mexico, Olmec
• Type: Jade
• Technique: albitite
• Dimensions: Overall: 11 x 6.2 x 3.9 cm (4 5/16 x 2 7/16 x 1 9/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1941.390

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "Jade Figurine in the Olmec Style." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29, no. 6 (June 1942): 100.
• Milliken, William. "Pre-Columbian Jade and Hard Stone." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 36, no. 4 (April 1949): 53-55.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.