Panel with Royal Woman
Unknown Artist
In this panel, probably from a palace interior, the woman's static posture contrasts with the liveliness of the creature she holds, a god of royalty with a serpent leg and a grotesque head with a smoking torch on its brow. (The same deity is shown in the nearby Eccentric Flint.) Other signs of high rank are her jade jewelry and costume, its beauty suggesting that textiles and featherwork were great Maya arts, now lost to a tropical climate. The hieroglyphics refer to an undefined ritual that the woman completed in 795.
Credit: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
c. 795
Limestone
60.4 x 69.8 cm
1962.32
Image and text: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023
Where you'll find this
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Permanent collection