Smiling Figurine
c. 1000–300 B.C.
- Medium
- Earthenware
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 11.5 × 9.6 × 3.9 cm (4 1/2 × 3 3/4 × 1 1/2 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
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Figurines from the Jomon period (about 14,000-300 BCE) have been found in greater numbers than figural representations from Neolithic China or Korea (about 10,000-1500 BCE). Though roughly executed, this figurine exudes human expression. Scholars have found a large number of these figurines, suggesting that they played an important role in Japan’sritual life at the time–something we don’t know much about.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
