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Bowl with Spider Decoration
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In the Nariño region of southwestern Colombia, the dead were buried in shaft tombs, the most elaborate up to sixty feet deep and furnished with offerings such as these bowls. Colombian ceramics are not much studied and little can be said about their imagery, which reveals a keen interest in geometric abstraction. Depicted here are a row of figures with thatch-roofed huts, humans attacked by birds, and spiders.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineBowl with Spider Decoration, c. 750–1250. Colombia, Highland Nariño region, Piartal style, 8th-13th Century. Ceramic, slip; diameter: 8.2 x 20.8 cm (3 1/4 x 8 3/16 in.); overall: 8.1 cm (3 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1995.41
