Bowl Depicting a Female Figure with Shield and Darts Motifs
Teotihuacan (Teotihuacan, Mexico)
300–600 CE
- Medium
- Ceramic, plaster, and pigment
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- Diam.: 22.5 cm (8 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Valley of Mexico
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- African and Amerindian Art Purchase Fund
- 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
Teotihuacan ceramic vessels were often fired and coated with a fine plaster that was then painted with figures and symbolic elements. This technique was derived from methods employed by mural painters, who covered masonry walls with fine plaster to serve as the ground for large-scale frescoes. The flaming torch may well allude to the ceremony of New Fire, kindled at New Year’s festivals and every 52 years at the inauguration of a new “century” in the native calendar system.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
