{
"data": {
"id": 130039,
"accession_number": "1952.459",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Pectoral (Chest Plaque), 400\u2013900. 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",
"current_location": "233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region",
"title": "Pectoral (Chest Plaque)",
"creation_date": "400\u2013900",
"creation_date_earliest": 400,
"creation_date_latest": 900,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Intermediate Region, Panama, Conte style, 5th-10th Century"
],
"technique": "gold alloy",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Art of the Americas",
"collection": "AA - Intermediate Region",
"type": "Metalwork",
"measurements": "Overall: 25.1 x 26.7 cm (9 7/8 x 10 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.251,
"height_inch": 9,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.267,
"width_inch": 10,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 300804,
"title": "Treasures of Peruvian Gold",
"description": "Treasures of Peruvian Gold. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 23-April 3, 1966).",
"opening_date": "1966-02-23T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; November 9, 1945- January 6, 1946. \"Art of the Americas.\"",
"opening_date": "1945-11-09T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; February 23-April 3, 1966. \"Treasures of Peruvian Gold.\"",
"opening_date": "1966-02-23T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "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.",
"opening_date": "1993-06-06T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., to John Wise Ltd. Galleries, New York, NY",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1930s-1952",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(John Wise Ltd. Galleries, New York, NY, 1952, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1952",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1952-present",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": "Sitio Conte, Panama",
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Panning for gold was viewed as a sacred activity among the ancient inhabitants of Costa Rica and Panama.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"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\u2019s 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\u2019s creative force.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60757121"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1952.459-pectoral-chest-plaqu"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cocle, Vol. 7.",
"page_number": "fig. 247, no. 16",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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"
},
{
"citation": "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"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Selected Works: Cleveland Museum of Art. 1967.",
"page_number": "No. 237",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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"
},
{
"citation": "GENTILLE, Thomas. [Step by Step Jewelry.] Jewellery. A Complete Introduction to the Craft of Jewellery. London: Evans Bros, 1973.",
"page_number": "p. 35",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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"
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null
},
{
"citation": "Jones, Julie. Art of Pre-Columbian Gold: The Jan Mitchell Collection. [Place of publication not identified]: Metropolitan Mus Of Art, 2012.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "Bergh, Susan E. \"'The Art of Those Who Lived Here Before the White Man Came': Collecting the Ancient Americas at the Cleveland Museum of Art.\" In Collecting the \u201cOther Americas\u201d: Ancient Americas Collections in American Art Museums, edited by Victoria I. Lyall, and Ellen Hoobler, 67- 82. Denver, Colorado: Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum, 2025.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 70-71, fig. 6",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1952.459",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_web.jpg",
"width": "995",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "529307",
"filename": "1952.459_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
"height": "3050",
"filesize": "6589279",
"filename": "1952.459_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_full.tif",
"width": "5451",
"height": "4891",
"filesize": "80023828",
"filename": "1952.459_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_alt0_web.jpg",
"width": "1013",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "541862"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_alt0_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
"height": "2996",
"filesize": "6267005"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_alt0_full.tif",
"width": "5146",
"height": "4535",
"filesize": "70057420"
},
"date_created": "2011-11-03T17:00:04",
"annotation": ""
},
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_alt1_web.jpg",
"width": "1067",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "699907"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_alt1_print.jpg",
"width": "1835",
"height": "1536",
"filesize": "2185322"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1952.459/1952.459_alt1_full.tif",
"width": "1835",
"height": "1536",
"filesize": "8458932"
},
"annotation": ""
}
],
"creditline": "Gift of Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, Mrs. Albert S. Ingalls, with additions from the John L. Severance Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 130039,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1952-11-29T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 400,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "400\u2013900",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Plaque with Reptilian Being",
"Supernatural Crocodilian Plaque"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:42:39.589000"
}
}