Female Seated Figure
Unknown Artist
100 BCE–300 CE
Medium
ceramic
Dimensions
52.3 × 30.5 × 29.5 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Clara Taplin Rankin
Accession Number
1998.83.1
About this artwork
This couple-extremely fine examples of their kind-may commemorate the marriage of an important person, such as a chief, but could also represent siblings of a chiefly family. Whatever their relationship, their unity is conveyed by their physical similarities, including their jewelry, which marks high social station. The female is unusual in nursing an infant, likely a reference to generational renewal and the continuation of noble bloodlines. The significance of the male’s activity-beating a tur...