id: 138881
accession number: 1963.252
share license status: CC0
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1963.252
updated: 2020-03-31 09:00:23.419000
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:
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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:
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CREATORS
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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:
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
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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:
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fun fact:
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.
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RELATED WORKS
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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:
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Turner, J. S. The Dictionary of Art. New York: Grove, 1996.
page number:
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Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. [Place of publication not identified]: Prentice Hall, 2001.
page number:
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Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, 1999.
page number:
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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:
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Bray, Warwick, and David H. Trump. The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
page number:
url:
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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