Square Bowl with Pampas Cats
Unknown Artist
500–400 BCE
Medium
Ceramic, post-fire paint
Dimensions
9 × 18 × 17.5 cm
Classification
Ceramic
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
J.H. Wade Trust Fund
Accession Number
2021.130
About this artwork
The Paracas often decorated their ceramics with geometricized representations of the native Pampas cat, a small, reclusive, wild feline that lives on the margins of agricultural fields, where it preys on the rodents and other pests that are a farmer’s bane. Thus, the ancients seem to have linked it to nature’s fertility and, by extension, human prosperity and continuity.