Vessel: Jaguar(?) (c. 1000–1550): Art, History and Details

Vessel: Jaguar(?) (c. 1000–1550) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Artists of the Pataky style excelled in animal portrayals that typically combine a modeled head with a flat, boldly patterned vessel chamber, punned as the animal's body. The animals' meanings are unstudied, though it seems important that many strike human poses-creatures that combine human and animal traits often have mythic import.

Object facts

• Title: Vessel: Jaguar(?)
• Date: c. 1000–1550
• Culture: Costa Rica, Southern Nicoya region, Pataky Polychrome style
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic, slip
• Dimensions: Overall: 34.6 x 27 x 27.6 cm (13 5/8 x 10 5/8 x 10 7/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Intermediate Region
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1969.108

Collection credit

James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1969.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1 (January 1970): 2–50.
• 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space. London ; New York: Phaidon, 2007.

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.