Handle in the Form of an Animal Head
c. 1000–300 B.C.
- Medium
- Earthenware
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- H.: 12 cm (5 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Purchased with Funds Provided by the Weston Foundation; President's Exhibition and Acquisition Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Only a handful of animals are represented in Jômon art. This piece is in the shape of the head of an animal; it looks like a horse from one side and a sheep from the other. The walls of the indentations are carefully modeled, not simply pressed into the clay with a stick. Judging by the curved back surface, it seems likely that this head came off of a vessel and was perhaps a handle that sat on the rim (with the curved surface at the back forming part of the interior wall of a jar).
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
