Cleveland Museum of Art

Pair of Seated Figures

Date: 100 BCE–300 CE
Medium: ceramic
Culture: Mexico, Nayarit
Department: Art of the Americas
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 160747

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

This couple-extremely fine examples of their kind-may commemorate the marriage of an important person, such as a chief, but could also represent siblings of a chiefly family. Whatever their relationship, their unity is conveyed by their physical similarities, including their jewelry, which marks high social station. The female is unusual in nursing an infant, likely a reference to generational renewal and the continuation of noble bloodlines. The significance of the male’s activity-beating a turtle-shell drum- is not understood.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Clara Taplin Rankin
Provenance: ?–1998: Mrs. Alfred M. [Clara Taplin] Rankin [b. 1917], given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1998–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH