Cleveland Museum of Art
Male Seated Figure
- Date
- 100 BCE–300 CE
- Medium
- ceramic
- Culture
- Mexico, Nayarit
- Department
- Art of the Americas
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 160749
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
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- 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
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