id: 130390
accession number: 1953.154
share license status: CC0
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1953.154
updated: 2023-08-25 11:18:35.304000
Head of a Young Noble, 746. Honduras, Copán, Structure 10L-22A, Maya style (250-900). Stone; overall: 53.3 x 35.6 x 52.1 cm (21 x 14 x 20 1/2 in.); former: 52.8 x 35.3 cm (20 13/16 x 13 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund 1953.154
title: Head of a Young Noble
title in original language:
series:
series in original language:
creation date: 746
creation date earliest: 746
creation date latest: 746
current location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region
creditline: Gift of the Hanna Fund
copyright:
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culture: Honduras, Copán, Structure 10L-22A, Maya style (250-900)
technique: stone
department: Art of the Americas
collection: AA - Mesoamerica
type: Sculpture
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
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CREATORS
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measurements: Overall: 53.3 x 35.6 x 52.1 cm (21 x 14 x 20 1/2 in.); Former: 52.8 x 35.3 cm (20 13/16 x 13 7/8 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work:
support materials:
inscriptions:
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.
opening date: 1958-03-04T05:00:00
In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; March 4-April 6, 1958. "In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr." cat. no. 170.
* Cleveland, OH:The Cleveland Museum of Art; 1986. Fort Worth, TX: The Kimbell Museum of Art; 1986."The Blood of Kings: A New interpretation of Maya Art."
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PROVENANCE
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fun fact:
digital description:
wall description:
This young noble may be a political official of 8th-century Copán, an important site in eastern Maya territory. The noble, who embodies the Maya ideal of masculine beauty, wears circular ear ornaments and a headband, above which the tied hair rises. The meaning of the disembodied hand that cups the chin is debated. The head, collected by Harvard archaeologists in the 1890s, comes from the facade of a building may have been used as a council house by a Copán ruler and his advisors during a crisis that rocked the city’s ruling dynasty. On the structure’s upper level, above woven mat signs that symbolized political authority, eight figures were enthroned in T-shaped recesses. This head is from one of these figures. Beneath each recess was a hieroglyph thought to name an important town (or family) within Copán’s domain. The figures may represent these towns’ advisors to the king, whose image crowned the structure.
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RELATED WORKS
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CITATIONS
Milliken, William M. "Mayan Head." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 4 (April 1954): 63-64.
page number: Mentioned: P. 63-64
url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25141954
The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 364
url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n69
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
page number: Reproduced: p. 292
url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n316
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
page number: Reproduced: p. 292
url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n316
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
page number: Reproduced: p. 396
url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n416
Schele, Linda, Mary Ellen Miller, and Justin Kerr. The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art. New York: G. Braziller, 1986.
Published as: Head of the God of the Number Zero
page number: Mentioned: P. 281; reproduced: P. 293, pl. 110
url:
Mayer, Karl Herbert. Maya Monuments: Sculptures of Unknown Provenance, Supplement 1. Berlin: Verlag von Flemming, 1987.
page number: Mentioned: P. 19-20, no. 18; Reproduced: pl. 80
url:
Young-Sanchez, Margaret. "Tenoned Head." In Interpretations: Sixty-Five Works from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Museum of Art, no. 44. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art,1991.
Published as: Tenoned Head
page number: Mentioned and reproduced: No. 44
url:
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IMAGES
web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1953.154/1953.154_web.jpg
print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1953.154/1953.154_print.jpg
full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1953.154/1953.154_full.tif