Cuba Material collection · Colección Cuba Material
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Catalog
Ceramic face pendant, Afro-Cuban woman in a headscarf, on fiber cord
Jewelry
Molded polychrome ceramic face pendant (earthenware), molded in low relief as a frontal female face. The face is finished in a reddish-brown ground; the figure wears a mustard-yellow headscarf/turban decorated with gold dots, with black hair tufts visible at the brow. Eyes are modeled closed/downcast with black outlines and gold-painted upper lids; the lips are full and painted bright red in a slight smile. The plaque is pierced with two holes at the crown and fitted with small metal wire loops (jump rings) at each cheek; a twisted natural-fiber cord passes through the crown holes and is knotted to a wearable loop. The reverse is unpainted, slightly concave reddish clay, impressed "CUBA."
2025.11.52
Necklace
2025.11
Purchase
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
Maker: Unidentified artisan/workshop — country mark only, no maker's name. Date: Undated. Cuban manufacture confirmed by the mark, but the year cannot be confirmed within 1959–1990 and may fall outside it. Place of Origin: Cuba (impressed "CUBA," reverse).
Impressed "CUBA" on the reverse, oriented vertically. No other marks.
Rope
cord, pendant
Materials: Earthenware/terracotta; polychrome paint with gold/metallic accents; metal wire suspension loops; twisted natural-fiber cord (cotton or jute). Technique: Hand-modeled / press-molded low relief; hand-painted polychrome decoration with metallic highlights; pierced for suspension; inserted wire loops; cord-strung by hand.
Good
A folk-art / tourist souvenir pendant. The iconography — an Afro-Cuban woman in a tied headscarf — belongs to a long lineage of Cuban popular ceramics and costume ornament (the negra / mulata type, also seen in tobacco-, coffee-, and Santería-adjacent souvenir imagery) ranging from affectionate folkloric portraiture to racialized caricature, and the catalog describes the iconography rather than endorsing it.