id: 138881 accession number: 1963.252 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1963.252 updated: Mural Fragment with Elite Male and Maguey Cactus Leaves, 500–550. Central Mexico, Tlacuilapaxco apartment compound(?), Teotihuacán style, Classic Period. Fresco on wall fragment; overall: 83.2 x 116.2 cm (32 3/4 x 45 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1963.252 title: Mural Fragment with Elite Male and Maguey Cactus Leaves title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 500–550 creation date earliest: 500 creation date latest: 550 current location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: Central Mexico, Tlacuilapaxco apartment compound(?), Teotihuacán style, Classic Period technique: fresco on wall fragment department: Art of the Americas collection: AA - Mesoamerica type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 83.2 x 116.2 cm (32 3/4 x 45 3/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Black Tulip Gallery, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: ?-1963 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1963- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: This fragment is from a larger composition that covered the walls of a patio at Teotihuacan. digital description: wall description: This richly dressed elite male belonged to a row of identical figures who processed along the walls of a patio in one of Teotihuacán’s wealthy apartment compounds. He offers a chant or prayer, materialized in a mouth scroll, along with a flower-filled libation that cascades from one hand. In the other hand, he carries an incense bag. The thorny spines of the maguey cactus, in front and behind, may allude to the offering of precious blood and a ritual beverage made from the cactus’s sap (pulque, a less refined form of tequila). The spines are thrust into objects that may represent bundles or plots of land. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Berrin, Kathleen, and Clara Millon. Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees: Reconstructing the Murals of Teotihuacán. [San Francisco, Calif.]: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1988. page number: pp. 195-205 url: Lee, Sherman E. "Year in Review for 1963." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 10 (1963). page number: p. 291 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25151974 Kubler, George. "The Iconography of the Art of Teotihuacán." Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, no. 4 (1967). page number: p. 4, 7-8 , fig. 17 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41263406 Miller, Arthur G. The Mural Painting of Teotihuacán. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1973. page number: p. 36-37, 170, fig. 366 url: Millon, René. Urbanization at Teotihuacán, Mexico. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1973. page number: p. 33-36, 121, fig. 48b url: Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "Veneration of the Dead: Religious Ritual on a Pre-Columbian Mirror-Back." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 9 (1990) page number: p. 328, fig. 4 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161301 Mexican Art Abroad. (Mexico: Groupo Azabache S.A. de C.V, 1994). page number: url: México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte. [México, D.F.]: [El Gobierno de la República], 1994. . page number: p. 84 url: Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York, NY: Abrams, 1995. page number: p. 145 url: Gardner, Helen, Richard G. Tansey, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1996. page number: url: Turner, J. S. The Dictionary of Art. New York: Grove, 1996. page number: url: Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. [Place of publication not identified]: Prentice Hall, 2001. page number: url: Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, 1999. page number: url: Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, 2002. page number: p. 522, fig. 12.3 url: Stokstad, Marilyn, David Cateforis, and Stephen Addiss. Art History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005. . page number: fig. 12-7 url: Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, 2005. page number: p. 509, fig. 12.3 url: Hernaez, Gerardo A. Ramirez and Esmeralda Reynoso Camacho. The Skin of Teotihuacan. (Arts and Cultures, 2008). page number: p. 116, fig. 13 url: Wilkins, David G., Bernard Schultz, and Katheryn M. Linduff. Art Past, Art Present. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education, 2008. page number: url: Bray, Warwick, and David H. Trump. The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. page number: url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1963.252/1963.252_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1963.252/1963.252_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1963.252/1963.252_full.tif