The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

Bowl with Fish

Bowl with Fish

c. 1000–1150
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Southwest freshwater garfish or coastal Pacific swordfish? Ancient motifs traveled via trade and cultural exchange.

Description

The Mogollon of New Mexico's Mimbres region produced thousands of bowls painted with black-and-white designs on their interiors. The designs range from elegant geometric motifs to abstract humans and animals. Meaning may have dwelled in part in the domed shape of the bowls, which often were ritually punctured before they were placed over the heads of the deceased in graves. Perhaps, like modern Pueblo peoples, the Mimbres believed that the sky was a dome pierced to allow for passage between worlds, as from the realm of the living to the dead.
  • 1920s-1930
    Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM, 1930, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1930-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art
  • C. F. R. “Some Examples of Mimbres Valley Pottery.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 4 (April 1930): 75–77, 83. Mentioned: p. 75-77; Reproduced: p. 83 www.jstor.org
    Mansfield Art Center. Art of the First Nations: Pueblo and Navajo Ceramics, Textiles, Jewelry, and Kachint̓ihu. [Mansfield]: [Mansfield Art Center], 1993. Mentioned: p. 6, no. 14
  • Conserving the Past for the Future. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-May 6, 2001).
    Art of the First Nations. Mansfield Arts Center, Mansfield, OH (March 7-April 4, 1993).
  • {{cite web|title=Bowl with Fish|url=false|author=|year=c. 1000–1150|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.49