Name/Title
Pendant with modeled face in Taíno style, glazed ceramic, on cordEntry/Object ID
2025.1.414Description
Teardrop-shaped ceramic pendant, broad and rounded at the bottom, tapering to a small rounded lug at the top pierced by a single suspension hole. The obverse is covered in a glossy glaze ranging from amber and ochre to olive and dark brown, pooling darker in the recesses and thinning to matte at the raised edges. A recessed vertical oval field at the center holds a modeled face in relief: a striated headdress or hair mass across the crown, a heavy brow, narrow lozenge eyes, a broad flat nose, a horizontal slit mouth, and a rounded chin. Flanking the face on both sides is a symmetrical decorative border of short incised strokes alternating with concentric circle-and-dot motifs, arranged in vertical bands following the pendant's outline. The rim is a darker unglazed or thinly glazed brown. The reverse is entirely unglazed: matte buff to tan clay, slightly convex, with fine dark inclusions and scattered small pores, and a darker ring of glaze or iron staining around the drill hole. Suspended on a long doubled black-and-gold machine-twisted cord, knotted through the hole, with the free ends knotted together.Item Type
PendantContext
The face type and the circle-and-dot border both evoke Antillean indigenous ceramics — Taíno pottery is characterized by bilateral symmetry in its designs, with incised or punctate, geometric and modeled motifs in a good-quality paste. The face belongs to the broad cemí / guaíza image family.
As twentieth-century Cuban production this would sit in an active and state-supported tradition: Cuban ceramic tradition fuses Spanish, African and Taíno influences, with the main workshops concentrated in Habana Vieja, Trinidad and Holguín, and many Cuban artisans today incorporate Taíno symbols such as the sun, the frog and the cemí into their work. No link between this object and any named workshop is established, and the same iconography is produced in volume in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.Collection
The Cabrera Arús family collection, Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez collecitionParts
Pendant, glazed ceramic (1)
Cord, doubled and knotted (1)Materials
Material
CeramicMaterial Notes
Fired ceramic — earthenware or stoneware, with a buff to cream body — under a glossy glaze. INFERRED from the glazed obverse, unglazed reverse, and the body exposed at the edge chip; not laboratory-confirmed, and I can't distinguish earthenware from stoneware by eye. Cord: synthetic filament, machine-twistedRelationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Gertrudis Caraballo GálvezNotes
ownerRelated Places
Place
City
HavanaCountry
CubaRegion
Caribbean, Central AmericaNotes
useCreated By
María A. Cabrera ArúsCreate Date
July 31, 2026Updated By
María A. Cabrera ArúsUpdate Date
July 31, 2026
