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Canteen
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Since the 1500s, Hopi women made big-bellied canteens, based on Spanish prototypes, and used them to carry water. By the late 1800s, canteens became popular with Euro-American tourists, who increasingly flocked to the Southwest in search of encounters with “exotic” Native American cultures. Thus, Hopi artists embellished their wares to improve their appeal, here with graceful abstract forms.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineCanteen, 1870. Native North America, Southwest, Arizona, Pueblo, Hopi. Ceramic, slip; overall: 20 x 24.5 cm (7 7/8 x 9 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Smithsonian Institution, 1923.1078
