Filagree Pendant in the Form of a Frog or Toad

500–1000

Coclé
Venado Beach, Coclé province, Panama

Throughout the ancient Americas, the animal world was closely linked to social hierarchies and obligations. In this worldview, frogs were seen as callers of water in connection with the onset of the rainy season, suggesting a ruler’s ultimate responsibility to the community to virtually ensure the continuity of the agricultural cycle.

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

Culture: Coclé
Title: Filagree Pendant in the Form of a Frog or Toad
Place: Venado Beach (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.: 500 CE–1000
Medium: Cast gold
Dimensions: H.: 18.3 cm (7 3/16 in.)
Credit Line: Wirt D. Walker Fund
Reference Number: 1969.792
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/32545/manifest.json

Samuel K. Lothrop, “Jewelry from the Panama Canal Zone,” Archaeology 9, 1 (Spring 1956), pg. 40, fig. 7 (ill.).
Allen Wardwell, “Some New Acquisitions of Pre-Hispanic Gold,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 67, 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1973), pg. 18, fig. 2 (ill.).
Mary W. Helms, Middle America: A Culture History of Heartland and Frontiers (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1975), 113, fig. 7.1
Richard Townsend, ed., The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Prestel Verlag, 1992), cat. 52.
Richard Townsend with Elizabeth Pope, Indian Art of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2016), 263, cat. 209 (ill.).)

Art Institute of Chicago, The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes, October 10, 1992–January 3, 1993, cat. 52; traveled to Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, February 4–April 18, 1993, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 6–August 15, 1993.

Lee E. Montgomery, St. Charles, Ill., by 1951 [documentation in curatorial files]; sold to the Art Institute, 1969.

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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.