On view
Art of the Ancient Americas
Uk’ib (drinking cup) depicting a captive presentation scene,
600–800
Maya
Late Classic Period
y1986-91
The painter of this drinking cup cleverly leveraged its tall, slender form to signal the relative rank of each person represented. Horizontal lines depict a staircase leading up to a royal palace. Warriors holding long spears stand at the bottom, on the same level as captives who are stripped of their finery and cluster together with cotton-wrapped tribute bundles. The captives and bundles are being given to the king above. The king, seated on a white throne, is framed by court assistants, one holding a fan and the other, perhaps a bodyguard, peeking out from behind the throne. A war captain, who delivered the captives and tribute, kneels before the king. On the other side of the vessel, a secondary lord gestures toward the warriors, indicating his agency in their presence before this higher-ranking lord. The litter on which he arrived at this court appears below.
More About This Object
Information
Title
Uk’ib (drinking cup) depicting a captive presentation scene
Dates
600–800
Medium
Ceramic with polychrome slip-paint
Dimensions
h. 28.0 cm., diam. 14.6 cm. (11 x 5 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mary O'Boyle English in honor of Woodruff J. English and the Class of 1931
Object Number
y1986-91
Place Made
North America, Guatemala, Petén, Maya area, Muutal (Tikal) or vicinity
Reference Numbers
K0767
MS1406
MS1406
Culture
Period
Type
Materials
Subject
By 1978, unknown US collection [1]. 1986, Gift of Mary O’Boyle English, New York, to the Princeton University Art Museum.
Notes:
[1] According to Justin Kerr photographic archive, Dumbarton Oaks (K0767).
- Francis Robiscek, The Maya Book of the Dead: The Ceramic Codex (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Art Museum, 1981)., fig. 22a, p. 121 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1986," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 46, no. 1 (1987): p. 18–52, p. 50
- Dorie Reents-Budet, "The Art of Classic Vase Painting," in Maya: Gottkönige in Regenwald, ed. Nikolai Grube (Köln: Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft, 2000): 247-259., figs. 395–397 (illus.)
- Dorie Reents-Budet, "Classic Maya Concepts of the Royal Court: An Analysis of Renderings on Pictorial Ceramics," in Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya, Volume One: Theory, Comparison, and Synthesis, Takeshi Inomata and Stephen D. Houston, eds. (Boulder, Colo.; Oxford: Westview Press, 2001)., fig. 767 (illus.)
- Mary E. Miller and Simon Martin, Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum of San Fransisco, 2004)., pl. 13, p. 42 (illus., image reversed)
- Bryan R. Just. "Mysteries of the Maize God", Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 68 (2009): 2–15., fig. 2, p. 3 (illus., with wrong accession number)
