# Incense burner with feline head > Tiwanaku artist(s) - 500-1000 CE > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/tiwanaku-culture/incense-burner-feline-head-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-12 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Tiwanaku artist(s) - **Date:** 500-1000 CE - **Medium:** Ceramic, modeled and painted with red and black slip - **Dimensions:** H. 25.7 x W. 21 x D. 30.5 cm (10 1/8 x 8 1/4 x 12 in.) - **Object type:** Ceramic - **Period:** Tiwanaku (Andean Middle Horizon, Bolivia) - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, Gallery 362 - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A ceramic incense burner in the form of a feline, made within the Tiwanaku state that dominated the Lake Titicaca basin between about 200 and 1100 CE, and dated by the Metropolitan Museum to 500-1000 CE. It is not, contrary to an initial brief for this record, an Islamic metalwork object: the Met's own accession record and open access data identify it unambiguously as a Tiwanaku ceramic vessel from Bolivia, part of the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection given by Nelson A. Rockefeller in 1969 and formally accessioned in 1978-79 when the Museum of Primitive Art's holdings were transferred to the Met.Vessels of this exact form, feline headed, flaring sided, scalloped at the rim, have been recovered in a fully excavated, radiocarbon dated ritual context at the Island of the Sun, deposited alongside sacrificed llamas and imported gold, shell and stone offerings, which is the best evidence available for what this type of object was made to do. This individual vessel's own findspot, export and pre-1969 ownership are not documented in any source consulted for this record, and that gap is recorded as a gap rather than filled with a guess. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **500-1000 CE** Made and used within the Tiwanaku polity, Titicaca basin, present-day Bolivia `[documented]` (origin) Attribution and broad date range are the Met's own; a scholarly essay on this specific object narrows the range to the 6th-9th century CE. No independent absolute date (for example radiocarbon) has been published for this individual vessel. - **undated** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No archaeological findspot, excavator, exporter or intermediate owner is documented in the sources consulted. How and when the vessel left Bolivia and entered the international art market is not recorded. - **-1969** Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York `[unknown]` (acquisition (by Rockefeller, terms unrecorded)) The Met's credit line establishes Rockefeller's ownership and the 1969 gift date, but no dealer, price, or acquisition date for Rockefeller's own purchase is given. Rockefeller founded the Museum of Primitive Art in New York in 1957; whether this vessel passed through that museum's own inventory before 1969 is not stated in the sources consulted and is not assumed here. - **1969-1978** Gift agreement in place; collection formally in transfer to the Metropolitan Museum of Art `[documented]` (gift agreement / pending transfer) Rockefeller signed the agreement transferring the Museum of Primitive Art's collection, staff and library to the Met in May 1969. The Museum of Primitive Art closed in 1974; physical transfer of its holdings to the Met took place across 1978-1979, which is why this gift is accessioned under the year prefix 1978.412 rather than 1969. Other Tiwanaku objects from the same Rockefeller gift carry the same accession pattern, for example the wooden kero at 1978.412.214. - **1978-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (accession) Accessioned 1978.412.100, object ID 310552. On view in Gallery 362 of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which opened to the public in 1982. ## Open questions - Where in Bolivia, or elsewhere, was this vessel excavated or found, and by whom? No findspot or excavation context is recorded in the sources consulted. - Did this vessel pass through the Museum of Primitive Art's own inventory before the 1969 Rockefeller gift, or did it reach Nelson Rockefeller by a different route? The object record does not say. - What did Nelson Rockefeller, or an intermediate owner, pay for this vessel, and to whom? No purchase price or dealer is published in the sources consulted. - Was this specific vessel ever used to burn incense, and does any residue or use-wear analysis exist for it, as has been undertaken for other Andean incense burners? Not addressed in the sources consulted. - Is the rayed-face deity depicted on the gold medallions recovered with the Khoa Reef incense burners the same figure carved on the Gateway of the Sun at the Tiwanaku capital, or a related but distinct figure? The sources consulted do not resolve this. - Does this vessel show any restoration, infill or reconstruction, of the kind documented on the comparable Smithsonian incense burner? The Met's own condition notes were not accessible in the sources consulted. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Incense burner with feline head,' Tiwanaku, object ID 310552, accession 1978.412.100. - [2] Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access API, object record for object ID 310552 (title, culture, medium, dimensions, credit line, department, isPublicDomain status, primary and additional images). - [3] Ananda Cohen-Aponte, 'Tiwanaku, an introduction,' Smarthistory, October 16, 2020, discussing this specific vessel's iconography and comparing it to Tiwanaku sculpted stone feline imagery. - [4] C. Delaere, J. M. Capriles and C. Stanish, 'Underwater ritual offerings in the Island of the Sun and the formation of the Tiwanaku state,' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(17), 2019, pp. 8233-8238. - [5] National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution) blog, post of June 22, 2015, on the conservation and reconstruction of a Tiwanaku feline incense burner for the Inka Road exhibition. - [6] Mark Cartwright, 'Tiwanaku,' World History Encyclopedia, March 17, 2014. Tertiary encyclopaedia source, flagged for replacement with peer-reviewed archaeological literature (Janusek, Kolata and others) on Tiwanaku's chronology, religion and decline. - [7] Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Kero (beaker),' Tiwanaku, accession 1978.412.214. - [8] Rockefeller Archive Center, 'Opening Up New Worlds: Nelson Rockefeller's Quest to Redefine Primitive Art,' REsource. - [9] Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.' --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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