On view
Gold labret in form of a curassow,
ca. 1450 CE
Aztec Jewelry
Among the Aztec, jewelry made of precious materials marked its wearer’s high social status and conveyed certain ideas about his or her character. The labret, or lip-plug, was inserted through a pierced hole in the lower lip and qualified the wearer's speech and breath as precious. The Aztec term for king, tlahtoani, means "speaker," attesting to the high value of refined, poetic rhetoric in Aztec culture. Many peoples of Mesoamerica also believed in a soul which resided in one’s breath; decorating the openings in the head, including the nostrils, mouth, and ears, signaled the preciousness and vitality of a person’s soul. The materials used in these ornaments came from distant lands through the Aztec’s expansive trade network. Turquoise, for example, originated in modern-day New Mexico, whereas jade was procured from the border of Guatemala and Honduras.
More Context
Didactics
In Mesoamerica the labret, or lip-plug, was a piece of jewelry worn only by noble males in Central Mexico. Inserted through a pierced hole in the lower lip, a labret qualified the wearer's speech and breath as precious. The Aztec term for king, tlatoani, literally means "speaker," attesting to the value of refined, poetic rhetoric. As with most Aztec jewelry, these pieces were actually fabricated by artisans from allied groups to the east, including the Eastern Nahuas, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs. This labret depicts the head of a bird, a common jewelry theme. Many examples can be identified as eagles, parrots, or quetzals, while others appear to be composite creatures. This work combines the crest of a quail with the large beak of a vulture or toucan. As recorded in the sixteenth century by the Franciscan missionary Friar Bernadino de Sahagún, gold objects like this labret were formed by shaping the details in wax over a rough clay and charcoal core. A clay and charcoal mold was then fashioned over the wax form, and molten gold was poured into the space between the mold and the wax. The wax melted and the core was broken with a small pick, leaving a hollow metal form.
Information
ca. 1450 CE
North America, Mexico, Puebla
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"Acquisitions 1972", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 32, no. 1 (1973): p. 20-30.
, p. 30 - Felipe Solís, The Aztec Empire: Catalogue of the Exhibition (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004)., cat. no. 293 (illus.)
- Felipe Solís, The Aztec Empire (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004)., fig. 153 (illus.)
- John M. D. Pohl, Sorcerers of the Fifth Heaven: Nahua Art and Ritual of Ancient Southern Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Program in Latin American Studies no. 9, 2007)., figs. 1, 10, 11, 12a, 13, 15 (illus.); cover
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 135 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 135
