The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Mosaic depicting a tigress with three playing cubs, all four of them with their mouths open as if roaring. The tigress bends down towards a leaping cub turning to look back at her. Another cub sits behind the leaping cup, spatially below the tigress among the solid off-white background. The third cub leaps on the mother's back. Shades of muted-orange brown with a black outline and stripes create the tigers. They each have winding tails.

Mosaic of Tigress and Cubs

300s CE

Eastern Roman Empire

tesserae
Overall: 142.9 x 135.4 cm (56 1/4 x 53 5/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1987.65
Location: 103 Roman

Did You Know?

This mosaic includes over ten thousand tesserae, or small cut-stone tiles.

Description

Despite its rectangular shape and creation from mostly square tesserae, this mosaic incorporates many curves in its composition, particularly for the tails of the tigers. With one cub on her back and two before her, the mother tiger reaches out with one paw and an open mouth, whether to scold or to play. Unlike lions, leopards, and bears, tigers appear relatively rarely in Roman art, with the tigress seen more frequently than her male counterpart.
  • -1984
    Gallery G. Maspero, Paris (Marianne Maspero), France, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1987-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1987." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 2 (1988): 30-71. Listed, p. 65, no. 8. www.jstor.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: The Museum, 1991. Ill. p. 16 (Byzantium). archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art. Motherhood across Time. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2021. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 2
  • The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).
    CMA 1988: "Year in Review 1987," CMA Bulletin 75 (February, 1988), p. 65, no. 8.
  • {{cite web|title=Mosaic of Tigress and Cubs|url=false|author=|year=300s CE|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1987.65