Cleveland Museum of Art
Textile Fragment with Cotton Goddess
- Date
- 800–500 BCE
- Medium
- Cotton, pigments
- Culture
- Andes, south coast, Ica Valley?, Chavín style
- Department
- Textiles
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 294034
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
The figure painted on this fragment represents a female deity with a large, fanged mouth. Further fanged heads occur on the chest, legs, feet, waist, and staffs of authority she holds. Edging both the staffs and the top of the head are white cotton bolls that have caused the deity to be dubbed the Cotton Goddess and associated with nature’s fertility. The fragment comes from a larger textile, perhaps a ceremonial hanging.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Provenance
- -1972: Jean Leons, Paris, France, sold to a Private Collector | 1972-2017: Private Collector, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 2017-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Part of a LinkedCulture topic
Ancient Peruvian TextilesAll objects are textile fragments, garments, or accessories from various pre-Columbian and Inca period cultures of Peru, showcasing diverse weaving techniques and materials including cotton and camelid fibers.
87 objects from 3 institutions
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