
Collection Online as of June 2, 2023
Ceramic, post-fire paint
Overall: 9 x 18 x 17.5 cm (3 9/16 x 7 1/16 x 6 7/8 in.)
J.H. Wade Trust Fund 2021.130
232 Andean
The Paracas often decorated their ceramics with geometricized representations of the native Pampas cat, a small, reclusive, wild feline that lives on the margins of agricultural fields, where it preys on the rodents and other pests that are a farmer’s bane. Thus, the ancients seem to have linked it to nature’s fertility and, by extension, human prosperity and continuity.