The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Bowl with Geometric Design (Two-part Design)

Bowl with Geometric Design (Two-part Design)

c. 1000–1150
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The Mimbres people pierced holes in fine bowls before burying them as offerings.

Description

The Mogollon people of New Mexico's Mimbres region produced thousands of bowls painted with black-and-white designs on their interiors. The designs range from geometric motifs to abstract humans and animals, like the pronghorn antelopes shown here. Meaning may have dwelled in part in the domed shape of the bowls, which often were ritually punctured before they were inverted over the heads of the deceased. Perhaps, like modern Pueblo peoples, the Mimbres believed that the sky was a dome pierced to allow for passage between worlds, from the realm of the living to the dead.
  • 1930
    The Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Bradfield, Wesley. Cameron Creek Village, A Site in the Mimbres Area in Grant County, New Mexico. [Santa Fe, N.M.]: [The School of American Research], 1931. Plate XLIII, figure 110, caption p. 75
    "Some Examples of Mimbres Valley Pottery." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 4, part 1 (April, 1930): 75-77 Mentioned: p. 77; Reproduced: p. 83 www.jstor.org
  • {{cite web|title=Bowl with Geometric Design (Two-part Design)|url=false|author=|year=c. 1000–1150|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.43