Bowl with Supernatural Feline | Yale University Art Gallery

A.D. 500–650

A familiar Nazca deity, perhaps an agricultural cult figure, stares out from this pot; a whiskered mask covers the lower part of its face. Plants sprout from its snaky body, which ends in an inverted head. Like most Nazca artists, this one did not articulate the body in space: the deity's face is frontal, but its body is in profile. The artist concentrated instead on the flat shapes of the black outlines and the overall pattern of the color, using a wide palette of clay slips, which range from yellow to violet. This precious bowl was broken and then carefully laced back together in ancient times.

Medium: Ceramic with pigment
Dimensions: 3 3/4 × 6 5/8 in. (9.6 × 16.8 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Dr. George Kubler, B.A. 1934, Ph.D. 1940
Accession Number: 1956.19.1
Geography: Central Andes, Peru
Culture: Central Andes, South Coast, Nasca
Period: Early Intermediate Period
Classification: Containers
Disclaimer: Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Bibliography

Elise K. Kenney, ed., Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 322, ill

Object copyright

No Copyright - United States

Additional information

Object/Work type

bowls (vessels), utilitarian objects

Subject

animals

Technical metadata and APIs

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