Face beaker with pumas and snakes

Unknown

12th–15th century · Gold · Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Beakers with faces featuring pronounced noses resembling bird beaks have been found on Peru’s Central and South coasts. This one is unusual, as it has a face on either side and is enlivened by two feline heads and two undulating serpents above the faces. According to newspaper accounts in 1900, this beaker was found on a farm near Lima, Peru, and was sent by “the orphans of Lima” to the New York Herald to be auctioned for the benefit of those left fatherless and motherless by the great Galveston storm of 1900—the single most deadly natural disaster in U.S. history.

Artist

Unknown

Date

12th–15th century

Medium

Gold

Culture

Chimú

Department

Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Credit line

Gift of Charles W. Gould, 1928