Front Face of a Stela (Free-standing Stone with Relief) (692): Art, History and Details

Front Face of a Stela (Free-standing Stone with Relief) (692) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In stone sculpture, Maya rulers celebrated the milestones of their reigns with flamboyant portraits like this image of a royal woman, created to mark the passage of a twenty-year period known as the k’atun. She originally stood in a plaza next to a portrait of her spouse (see photo), with whom she ruled El Perú-Waka’, a provincial Maya town. A member of the powerful dynasty of a nearby Maya center, she seems to have held higher authority than her husband, serving as a military governor. Her costume reflects her status: the headdress has a fan of green quetzal feathers and her jewelry probably refers to jade-both among the most prized of ancient materials. Jade beads also may form the net over her garment, belted with the head of a fish-like creature. Completing the costume are the scepter and shield she grasps in her hands. The dwarf at her side may be a court attendant. The hieroglyphic text refers to important dynastic dates.

Object facts

• Title: Front Face of a Stela (Free-standing Stone with Relief)
• Date: 692
• Culture: Mesoamerica, Guatemala, Department of the Petén, El Perú (also known as Waka'), Maya (250-900), Classic period (200-1000)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone
• Dimensions: Overall: 274.4 x 182.3 cm (108 1/16 x 71 3/4 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1967.29

A detail from the museum

The powerful Maya queen shown on this stela is known as Lady K’abel.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Year in Review." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 10 (1967)
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• Mesa Redonda de Palenque, and Merle Greene Robertson. Primera, Mesa Redonda De Palenque. Pebble Beach, Calif: Robert Louis Stevenson School, Pre Columbian Art Research, 1974.

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.