Bowl Depicting a Female Figure with Shield and Darts Motifs

300–600 CE

Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan, Mexico

Teotihuacan ceramic vessels were often fired and coated with a fine plaster that was then painted with figures and symbolic elements. This technique was derived from methods employed by mural painters, who covered masonry walls with fine plaster to serve as the ground for large-scale frescoes. The flaming torch may well allude to the ceremony of New Fire, kindled at New Year’s festivals and every 52 years at the inauguration of a new “century” in the native calendar system.

Status: On View, Gallery 136
Department: Arts of the Americas

Culture: Teotihuacan
Title: Bowl Depicting a Female Figure with Shield and Darts Motifs
Place: Valley of Mexico (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 300 CE–600 CE
Medium: Ceramic, plaster, and pigment
Dimensions: Diam.: 22.5 cm (8 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: African and Amerindian Art Purchase Fund
Reference Number: 1968.790
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/30739/manifest.json

Richard Townsend, ed., The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Prestel Verlag, 1992), cat. 260.
Dorothy Chaplik, Latin American Arts and Cultures (Davis Publications, 2000), (ill.).
Richard Townsend with Elizabeth Pope, Indian Art of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2016), 174, cat. 149 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes, Oct. 10, 1992–Jan. 3, 1993, cat. 260; traveled to Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Feb. 4–Apr. 18, 1993, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 6–Aug. 15, 1993.

Gisele Charat (1912-1985, born Gisele Levy; Mrs. Hanoh Charat), Anatole, France, and Mexico City, by Oct. 1968 [incoming receipt, RX6700, Oct. 21, 1968 in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1968.

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Bowl Depicting a Female Figure with Shield and Darts Motifs

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.