id: 130039 accession number: 1952.459 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1952.459 updated: 2023-03-20 14:14:10.257000 Pectoral (Chest Plaque), 400–900. Intermediate Region, Panama, Conte style, 5th-10th Century. Gold alloy; overall: 25.1 x 26.7 cm (9 7/8 x 10 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, Mrs. Albert S. Ingalls, with additions from the John L. Severance Fund 1952.459 title: Pectoral (Chest Plaque) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 400–900 creation date earliest: 400 creation date latest: 900 current location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region creditline: Gift of Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, Mrs. Albert S. Ingalls, with additions from the John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: Intermediate Region, Panama, Conte style, 5th-10th Century technique: gold alloy department: Art of the Americas collection: AA - Intermediate Region type: Metalwork find spot: Sitio Conte, Panama catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 25.1 x 26.7 cm (9 7/8 x 10 1/2 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; November 9, 1945- January 6, 1946. "Art of the Americas." * Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; February 23-April 3, 1966. "Treasures of Peruvian Gold."

Chicago, Illinois: The Art Institute of Chicago; October 10, 1992-January 3, 1993. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; June 6- August 15, 1993. "The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscape." Fig. 5, repr. p. 220, cat, no. 53. --- PROVENANCE Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., to John Wise Ltd. Galleries, New York, NY date: 1930s-1952 footnotes: citations: (John Wise Ltd. Galleries, New York, NY, 1952, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: 1952 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1952-present footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Panning for gold was viewed as a sacred activity among the ancient inhabitants of Costa Rica and Panama. digital description: wall description: Harvard archaeologists excavated this and seven other ornaments from several burials at Sitio Conte, a cemetery famous for its lavish graves of powerful chieftains. The young man buried in Grave 26 was such a chief. His status was stunningly memorialized by 21 human companions and 475 objects, many of them personal ornaments made of gold, including a large chest plaque and a rod-shaped ear ornament. The creature on the chest plaque, found close to the chief’s body, has reptile claws and perhaps the head crest of an iguana. Its meaning is unknown but perhaps, as in later periods, reptilian imagery and the warm gleam of gold linked rulers with the sun’s creative force. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cocle, Vol. 7. page number: fig. 247, no. 16 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 381 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n71 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 294 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n318 Cleveland Museum of Art. Selected Works: Cleveland Museum of Art. 1967. page number: No. 237 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 294 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n318 GENTILLE, Thomas. [Step by Step Jewelry.] Jewellery. A Complete Introduction to the Craft of Jewellery. London: Evans Bros, 1973. page number: p. 35 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 398 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n418 Hearne, Pamela, and Robert J. Sharer. River of Gold--Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte. Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1992. page number: p. 22-31 url: Townsend, Richard F., and Anthony F. Aveni. The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1992. page number: p. 220 url: May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. page number: no. 109, p. 98, 220 url: Jones, Julie. Art of Pre-Columbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection. [Place of publication not identified]: Metropolitan Mus Of Art, 2012. page number: url: Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 336-337 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_full.tif