The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 19, 2024

Crocodile Pendant

Crocodile Pendant

1000–1550

Did You Know?

The greenstone replaced a piece of carved whale bone that was once improperly paired with the pendant.

Description

Of great importance in ancient Panama were beings that combined crocodile features, especially the mouth, with lizard traits, such as the iguana’s head crest. This example also has a back-swept nose, perhaps that of the leaf-nosed bat. The greenstone is a modern replacement for a stone or shell that once completed the crocodile’s body.
  • ?-1964
    (Stendahl Art Galleries, Los Angeles, CA, 1964, sold to James C. and Florence C. Gruener)
    1964
    James C. [1903-1990] and Florence C. [1908-1982] Gruener, Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1990
    The Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Von Winning, Hasso, and Alfred Stendahl. Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America: Text and Notes by Hasso Von Winning. Selection of Plates by Alfred Stendahl. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1968. p. 385, fig. 593
    Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75. Referenced: cat. no. 122, p. 274, Reproduced: fig. 122, p. 264 www.jstor.org
  • The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-November 29, 1992).
  • {{cite web|title=Crocodile Pendant|url=false|author=|year=1000–1550|access-date=19 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1990.160