Collection record · Objects & craft
Decorative Plaque: Cow Nursing Its Calf
The collection record classifies this work as ivory. It is dated 900–800 BCE. Recorded culture or place: Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud.
Explore the object recordOBJECT RECORD
A closer look at the details.
- Museum title
- Decorative Plaque: Cow Nursing Its Calf
- Date
- 900–800 BCE
- Culture / origin
- Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud
- Materials and technique
- ivory
- Dimensions
- Overall: 4.6 x 12.4 cm (1 13/16 x 4 7/8 in.)
- Artist / maker
- Not specified by the museum
- Museum
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession number
- 1968.48
FROM THE MUSEUM
In the museum’s words
The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.
This small plaque was executed in the Phoenician style with symmetrical compositions, elongated figural proportions, and Egyptian subjects and motifs. Examples have been found throughout the Middle East, but thousands come from Nimrud where most were excavated in the storerooms of a military arsenal built by King Shalmaneser II (858-824 bc). When the Nimrud palace was sacked in the 7th century bc, these ivories were thrown into a well, where Sir Max Mallowan (the husband of Agatha Christie) discovered them in 1951. The monumental wall relief (1943.246) was found at the same Assyrian palace at Nimrud.
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Text and image sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund · CC0
The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.
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