Bird Effigy Pipe Fragment

Description

The modest appearance of this small bird-effigy pipe, its head now lost, is misleading—the carving is fine and imagery, complex. The upper part takes the form of a bird’s body, the wings folded over the back. The section beneath the bird’s breast, intact but difficult to read, may depict a human torso with a pronounced navel and upraised forearms and hands, the palms facing outward. If so, one creature could be carrying or transforming into the other. The pipe was created by an artist of the ancient Adena people of southern Ohio. Smoke traveled through an interior channel to the mouthpiece, a small hole on the underside.

Provenance

Found in a stone mound on the farm of Jacob Vance, about a mile west of St. Louisville, Newton Township, Licking County, Ohio, by Mr. B. Jones of Columbus, Ohio. (c. 1882); James C. Wright; Charles F. Wray, West Rush, NY; Arthur George Smith, Norwalk, Oh, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art (?-1963); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1963-)

Bird Effigy Pipe Fragment

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400 BCE–100 CE

Accession Number

1963.272

Medium

sandstone

Dimensions

Overall: 6.6 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm (2 5/8 x 1 x 1 in.)

Classification

Sculpture

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Arthur George Smith