On view
Art of the Ancient Americas
Two-part censer in the form of an architectural model,
400–550 CE
Teotihuacán style
Middle Classic Period
1998-221 a-b
Numerous mass-produced, mold-made elements compose this assemblage sculpture. The upper portion was made to be lifted off, so that copal (pine-tree resin) or rubber incense could be placed inside; the smoke emanated from the tube that runs through the center of the scene. The platform and angled roof indicate an architectural setting in distinctively Teotihuacan style. Birds and severed human arms hang from a temple structure above a pair of seated human figures. Three additional figures, two wearing dog or coyote masks, accompany the humans while an owl descends from the sky to perch at the very top.
Information
Title
Two-part censer in the form of an architectural model
Dates
400–550 CE
Medium
Ceramic with pigment
Dimensions
top: h. 55.0 cm., diam. 29.0 cm. (21 5/8 x 11 7/16 in.)
base: h. 17.0 cm., diam. 28.5 cm. (6 11/16 x 11 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Samuel Merrin in honor of Allen Rosenbaum
Object Number
1998-221 a-b
Place Made
North America, Guatemala, Esquintla, Maya area
Culture
Period
Subject
December 1998, gift of Samuel Merrin, New York, to the Princeton University Art Museum.
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1998," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 58, no. 1/2 (1999): p. 86-123., p. 118
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 109 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)
-
Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017)
, p. 237, fig. 138
