The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

Bowl with Grasshopper

Bowl with Grasshopper

1000–1130
ceramic, slip
Overall: 8 x 18.8 cm (3 1/8 x 7 3/8 in.)
Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1930.47
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

In this ancient Mimbres bowl, a whimsical desert grasshopper combines both realistic and abstract elements

Description

The Mogollon of New Mexico’s Mimbres region created thousands of hemispheric bowls painted with black-and-white designs on their interiors. The designs range from elegant geometric motifs to abstract humans and animals. Meaning may have dwelled in part in the domed shape of the bowls, which often were ritually punctured before they were placed over the heads of the deceased in graves. (This example comes from a non-funerary context.) Perhaps, like the modern Pueblo peoples who descend from them, the Mimbres believed that the sky is a dome pierced to allow passage between worlds, such as between the realms of the living and the dead.
  • 1920s
    Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM, 1930, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    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 LXXVIII, figure 307, caption p. 93
    "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 www.jstor.org
    Bergh, Susan E., "Unburied Treasure", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 45 no. 10, December 2005 Mentioned & reproduced: p. 7 archive.org
    Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. Reproduced: p. 18 - 19; back cover
  • Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 7-May 30, 2010).
    CMA 2010: "Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection" March 7 - May 30, 2010
    Mansfield Arts Center, Ohio (March 7 - April 4, 1993) "Art of the First Nations"
    The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-August 22, 1982).
    CMA 1979: Southwest American Indian Art, September 1979-February 1980, no catalogue
  • {{cite web|title=Bowl with Grasshopper|url=false|author=|year=1000–1130|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1930.47