Jar with Horned Serpents and Interlocking, Hatched-and-Black Stepped Designs
Ancestral Pueblo (West-central New Mexico)
950–1400
- Medium
- Earthenware and pigment
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- 42.6 × 41.3 cm (16 3/4 × 16 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- New Mexico
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of Edward and Betty Harris
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Horned or plumed serpents, mythical entities associated with the life-giving power of water, have an ancient history in the art of the American Southwest, Midwest, and Southeast. On the shoulder of this vessel, twin highly abstract serpents stretch out from a central point, from which rises a series of superimposed stepped chevrons. The chevron is a symbolic motif widely associated with mountains, springs, rivers, and rising thunderstorms. The overall composition of this jar suggests the symbolic representation of a sacred landscape and the ritual summoning of water.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
