Carved Vessel (c. 600–1000): Art, History and Details

Carved Vessel (c. 600–1000) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A firefly is carved on both sides of this Maya vessel, which is from the Yucatán Peninsula. Among the most common of insects to appear in Maya art, the firefly seems to be associated with things that twinkle in the dark—stars and cigars, the latter a symbol that identifies creatures of the night.

Object facts

• Title: Carved Vessel
• Date: c. 600–1000
• Culture: Mexico, Campeche, Maya, Chocholá Style
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware
• Dimensions: Overall: 12.1 x 16.3 cm (4 3/4 x 6 7/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1990.173

A detail from the museum

The text on the rim mentions a young man, suggesting this vessel was involved in a rite-of-passage ceremony.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener

Further reading listed by the museum

• Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75.
• Maurer, Evan M., and Molly Hennen. Symboles sacrés: quatre mille ans d'art des Amériques. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.