
Cleveland Museum of Art
Small Bottle with Feline
- Date
- 700–1 BCE
- Medium
- earthenware, resin-based paint
- Culture
- Peru, South Coast, Paracas (Cavernas) style (700 BCE–1 CE)
- Department
- Art of the Americas
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
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. 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.
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