Vessel with Feline (700 BCE–1 CE): Art, History and Details

Vessel with Feline (700 BCE–1 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Little is known of the meaning of the beautifully abstracted felines so often incised on Paracas ceramics. The designs achieve much of their complexity through color applied as resin-based paint after the vessel was fired in a smoky atmosphere that blackened its surface. Two spouts joined by a bridge appear on many fine South Coast ceramics. The form probably had meaning, now lost.

Object facts

• Title: Vessel with Feline
• Date: 700 BCE–1 CE
• Culture: Peru, South Coast, Paracas (Cavernas) style (700 BCE–1 CE)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware, resin-based paint
• Dimensions: Diameter: 14.2 cm (5 9/16 in.); Overall: 11.3 cm (4 7/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1948.477

A detail from the museum

Small, wild, reclusive felines, pampas cats live on the margins of agricultural fields, where they prey on rodents and other pests that are a farmer’s bane

Collection credit

Gift of John Wise

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.