Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: public domain (CC0) · Museum record & image source ↗

Isthmian Region (Colombia), Tolima · 1–800 CE

Figural Pendant

Creator not recorded by the museum

Date: 1–800 CE
Medium: gold, cast and hammered
Dimensions: Overall: 29.4 x 16.2 x 1 cm (11 9/16 x 6 3/8 x 3/8 in.)
Country / context: Colombia
Movement / tradition: Central and South American arts
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Pathway: Central and South American arts ↗

FROM THE MUSEUM

Colombia's Tolima region is justly famous for arrestingly abstracted figures like this one, among the largest of its kind. Such figures, worn as necklace pendants by chiefs and other elites, seem to be based on the human form. But they also incorporate animal features, often an upturned, bifurcated tail sometimes compared to that of a serpent and large, angled head appendages that may refer to animal ears or even insect antennae.

Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0

A MOMENT TO LOOK

Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?

Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.

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