The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of August 12, 2026

A small brown ceramic vessel is shaped like a bat with its mouth open, fangs showing, and spreading its wings. The bat has large oval ears and a cylindrical spout sticks up from behind the bat's head.

Big-Eared Brown Bat Vessel

200–850 CE

Central Andes, North Coast, Moche people

ceramic, slip
Overall: 18.4 x 17.7 x 15.8 cm (7 1/4 x 6 15/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2005.6
Location: 232 Andean

Did You Know?

This vessel depicts a big-eared brown bat.

Description

This bat, perhaps shown opening its wings before taking flight, illustrates Moche artists’ keen interest in realism and in capturing activity at its peak. Moche bat symbolism may be linked to the animal’s paradoxical traits—for instance, bats fly but have fur rather than feathers. Such traits may have caused the Moche to link bats with transitional states, such as the passage between life and death. The vessel depicts a member of the Histiotus mochica species, a big-eared brown bat that researchers described in 2021 and, due to this vessel, named in honor of the Moche, also known as the Mochica.
  • Update on pre-acquisition history pending.
    2005-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Simmons, Lisa, and Sue Bergh. "A South American Bestiary." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 48, no. 9 (November 2008): 5-7. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 5-7 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 334
  • {{cite web|title=Big-Eared Brown Bat Vessel|url=false|author=|year=200–850 CE|access-date=12 August 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2005.6