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

Vessel with Ballplayer (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:

Many Mesoamerican people played ball games, using their hips rather than hands and feet to keep the heavy, solid rubber ball in play. Here a Maya ballplayer, wearing a thick protector to shield his torso from injury, dives to intercept the ball, which hovers in front of his face. The scene is situated within stepped walls, probably those of a ball court.

Object facts

• Title: Vessel with Ballplayer
• Date: c. 600–1000
• Culture: Mexico, Yucatán, Maya (Chocholá) style (250-900)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware, pigment
• Dimensions: Diameter: 18.1 x 15.6 cm (7 1/8 x 6 1/8 in.); Overall: 18 cm (7 1/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1990.180

A detail from the museum

This vessel was once broken into 34 pieces before being repaired.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener

Further reading listed by the museum

• Merrony, Mark. “The Maya : First Lords of the Jungle." Antiqvvs 3, n. 3 (Summer 2021): 39-44.
• Turner, Evan H. "Acquisitions: 1990." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 2 (1991): 30-45.
• Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75.

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.