The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Cup with Four Faces

Cup with Four Faces

600–1000
Stone with shell inlay
Overall: 9.5 x 9.2 cm (3 3/4 x 3 5/8 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2019.169
Location: 232 Andean

Did You Know?

The inlay is made of spondylus (thorny oyster) shell, a form of wealth in antiquity.

Description

The identity of the four, wide-eyed faces on this cup is unknown. Equally mysterious is the cup’s function. It seems too small to be used for drinking beer at the feasts the Wari sponsored to put others in their debt. The size may suggest the cup was used in more intimate circumstances, perhaps to make libations to sacred forces that animated the ancient landscape.
  • Before 1969
    (Probably André Emmerich, Inc.)
    Before 1969
    Mr. and Mrs. Robert Spitzer, New York City
    1991
    Sotheby’s New York, Auction (November 18, lot 13A)
    1991
    Merrin Gallery, New York, NY
    1991-2019
    American Private Collector
    2019-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Museum of Primitive Art (New York, N.Y.). Precolumbian Art in New York; Selections from Private Collections. [New York]: Distributed by New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Conn, 1969. Cat. 263
    Lapiner, Alan C. Pre-Columbian Art of South America. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1976. fig. 577-578
    Sotheby's (Firm). Pre Columbian Art. 1991. Lot 13A
    Bergh, Susan E. “Pre-Colombian and Native North American Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 60, no. 2 (March/April 2020): 14-15. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 14.
  • {{cite web|title=Cup with Four Faces|url=false|author=|year=600–1000|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.169